


Manufactured Savagery

by Nerve_Itch



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (briefly) - Freeform, Angst, BDSM, Bad Decisions, Bargaining, Blood, Bottom Hannibal, Bottom Will, Bukkake, Death Fetish, Filth, Gunplay, Impact Play, Kidnapping, Kink Exploration, M/M, Masochism, More tags to be added, Murder Husbands, Murder Wives, Peril, Photographs, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Power Dynamics, Sadism, Sparring, awkward sexual injuries, but the tooth thing is clearly warned in the chapter notes, chemical restraints, creative use of firearms, creepy jewellery used as a tool for emotional manipulation, death kink, erotic tooth pulling, exploring abandonment issues through the medium of unsafe kink practices, masochistic will, posture collars, terrible aftercare, the unsafe kind, there's a tag I never thought I'd have to write, with spikes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:39:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5344463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerve_Itch/pseuds/Nerve_Itch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There’s a tangible shift in the flavour of the air; through the particles of sweat, of petrol from the motorbikes skimming past the Cartagena docks, and through the hum of people filtering through the evening, there’s a fresh tang. Hannibal retreats into the shadows cast by crates, unnoticeable. He inhales. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>This new scent brings to mind the sharpness of freshly cut cattle throats, for a second. </i></p><p>  <i>And then the scent becomes a melody; something familiar, visceral, and something that Hannibal has come to appreciate as only his. </i></p><p>  <i>Oh, Will. </i></p><p> <br/><b>Or:</b> Hannibal misses seeing Will in distress, and finds increasingly creative ways to address this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1: Cartagena

There’s a tangible shift in the flavour of the air; through the particles of sweat, of petrol from the motorbikes skimming past the Cartagena docks, and through the hum of people filtering through the evening, there’s a fresh tang. Hannibal retreats into the shadows cast by crates, unnoticeable. He inhales.

This new scent brings to mind the sharpness of freshly cut cattle throats, for a second.

And then the scent becomes a melody; something familiar, visceral, and something that Hannibal has come to appreciate as only his.

There’s too much noise to decipher the full story being told by this new scent; the only voices that carry are shouting instructions for loading cargo, arguing prices and timescales, laughter. There’s no audible accompaniment of threats or pleas to join the scent of blood and panicked sweat. Not enough clues to establish the magnitude of risk, and Hannibal feels a tug of something inconvenient at some internal clutch of muscle that all of his surgical knowledge can’t quite identify.

He’s not one to encourage coddling. Will should be smart enough not to need his help. Although, Hannibal reasons, it was his fear that Will may be acting recklessly that led him to following him through the shadows at the turn of the evening. Hannibal’s concern does not extend to remorse for goading Will to leave in the first place.

He ambles closer to the source of the smell. The handful of people nearby are too preoccupied to pay him notice as he navigates through the crates and trollies until the shadows grow taller and the unmistakeable sound of air being punched out of lungs hits his ears.

The sound pulls the smallest of smiles to his face.

Oh, Will.

It’s five silent strides until there’s a view of the source of the noise, and the blood-thick scent of struggle honeys Hannibal’s nostrils.

Will – _his_ Will – is curved backwards across the railings. He’s flanked on either side, and he’s grappling with an arm tugging his head back from the hair. Hannibal knows he shouldn’t enjoy the sight of the way Will’s throat looks stretched, highlighted in blue beneath flashlights. _Shouldn’t_. The concepts of _shoulds_ and _shouldn’ts_ often sit counter to the impulses he feels in regard to Will, and so he discards the accompanying guilt that they might bring. The second man is pressed close to Will, legs pinning him to the metal of the railing, and he’s burying the barrel of a gun into Will’s open mouth. It would be vulgar, the threat, if it weren’t so…evocative. Hannibal finds himself reviewing his distaste for firearms as Will tries to speak around it.

Only vowel sounds carry, and the man holding the gun speaks, impatience and frustration speeding up the words, the English sounding frantic through the lilt of the local accent.

“Who sent you?”

Hannibal watches Will relax his grasp on the first man, sees the minute shift into a poise which looks like defeat to those unfamiliar with Will’s nuances. Hannibal recognises it as the precursor to attack.

It’s quick, when it comes, but it’s clumsy. Hannibal finds himself critiquing the lack of technique as Will grabs at the gun, jerking his head further back and elbowing the second man in the face. He’s leaving himself too open to retaliation. Hannibal’s criticism is validated; the second man swings the gun at Will’s temple, splitting skin and adding to the hum of blood in the air as red splays across the strained contours of Will’s face.

“You won’t shoot me” Will says, and there’s blood in his mouth; thin, now, mixed with saliva. From an earlier blow, it seems. Hannibal feels a pang of jealousy that he hadn't been present to witness it. “They’ll count your bullets.”

Hannibal switches to pride; he hadn’t yet noticed the clues that the men belonged to law enforcement. Off-duty Policía with on duty weapons. He finds himself wondering how much Will knew; if he’d hunted these men simply because Hannibal suggested it was necessary for their safety, or if he'd merely stumbled into an altercation out of spite for his circumstances. The admiration he feels continues as he watches Will folding onto the concrete, knees taking the brunt of his weight. There’s a smear of red trailing from the trouser fabric of Will’s left leg, and Hannibal is trying to form a picture of the wound that might have caused it. He watches as Will is kicked in the gut, hard and heavy, and as the first man flicks a knife open – Will’s knife – Hannibal feels his pulse starting to quicken.

He’s missed the thrill of this.

“Tell me sent you," demands the second man, and he sounds more desperate than angry. A man with too many enemies to trust in the anonymity of this one. Will’s breathing sounds weighted as he spits out an answer.

“None of them.”

“Then you have no protection,” the first man says, and he’s resting a foot on Will’s head, pressing the scarred side of his face to the ground.

“Why’re you here?” asks the second man, and he’s crouched on the ground, tucking the gun away, instead holding the knife uncomfortably close to Will’s face. Hannibal isn’t impressed; the stranger has both shown his hand and folded in the same gesture. He won’t kill Will, and already there’s a dampening of the thrilling surge. A knife, in hands so uncertain…it would only mar, not devastate. The threat, though real, has lost some of its orchestral viscera. Hannibal looks on, reassured and disappointed in unequal measures, though a little unclear on where the balance tips.

Will’s arms are clutching at his stomach, and he’s curled, foetal. He looks vulnerable to anyone who doesn’t know him, doesn't see the specific tics and twitches of the ruses he employs to overcome those who threaten them.

The first man murmurs something too quiet to be audible to the shadows, and he’s surveying the spaces around them.

“Self preservation,” offers Will as a delayed answer, and he’s unfurling; his hands creeping underneath him in order to gain leverage to push himself up, his knees bending to kick out.

Hannibal sees the inevitability of failure before it happens.

Will twists away, but the weight on his head hinders the movement. The knife catches the palm of his hand as he swats. He’s still trying to grab the weapon, and as the blade cuts into Will’s hand, Hannibal finds himself captivated at the way Will doesn't shy away from the pain. Will’s safety, literally on a knife’s edge, and Will’s holding onto the wrong end of it. It’s the kind of poetry that Hannibal’s been missing.

“Tell me why you’re here, or you go in the water.”

Will bites at the arm holding the knife, a fierce and feral incision that breaks skin and pulls a scream out of the injured man. The handle slips into Will’s hands. The next slice made by Will and it’s swift; right across the Policía’s jugular, and the shower it produces is a lurching, spewing thing.

The second man stills; a moment of shock that allows Will to push himself back into the fight, knife aimed at the pulse in the man’s neck. The moment passes without purchase; the second man lunges at Will, a fist curved upwards that catches beneath his jaw, sending Will skull-first towards the ground.

Hannibal is across the silent spaces between them before Will completes the drop. His fingertips are all that slows the impact of bone against concrete, and it’s enough, just. There’s still a thud, and a reflexive bounce, but there’s not the crack that would otherwise have occurred.

The second man is only granted four breaths before Hannibal squeezes the air from his neck, then twists, sharp and impatient.

Some people deserve ornamentation and elevation. This one doesn’t. Hannibal lifts his body to the railings and shunts it over the edge. The ripple he forms in the water is legacy enough; undramatic and unseen, with the sound swallowed by the distant workers on the docks. He drags the other; this one leaving red and sputtering in its wake, and sends it over to follow.

They served their purpose, Hannibal supposes. Nothing more.

Hannibal expects Will to be slowed by the blunted impact of his head on the ground, expects some concession to the way his body will need to recover from those injuries bestowed upon him out of his sight, but Will has always been one to counter expectation.

“Home,” Will says, standing with some difficulty, a low blooming fury in his eyes.

Will doesn’t know the effect of the word, so urgently spoken and taken for granted, but Hannibal feels its impact. _Home_. An ever changing place for them since their fall, never tranquil, but always with the two of them. Will demands _home_ , meaning that Will demands the stability, the comfort that Hannibal provides. That Will provides in turn for Hannibal. The two of them entwined in their dependency.

Hannibal threads an arm to rest against Will’s side in offer of support.

Stability, Hannibal knows, has never been the best enabler of Will’s potential.

They’ve had a tentative honeymoon of sorts these past few months, and they’ve healed, enough. If tonight has proved anything to Hannibal, it’s that there’s a ferocity to their dynamic which has lain dormant through these slow months of convalescence, and that there’s no time like the present to reinvigorate it.

Sending Will like a hound after the inconvenient obstacles who seem to threaten them is fine, though it seems too trite an expenditure of their efforts. The corrupt law enforcers of the Colombian docks are poor receptacles for it. He’d do it, if needed. But, Hannibal decides, as he steers Will through the shadows towards his parked motorbike, it’s not so much the act of killing that he needs to spark the two of them into profound actions.

It’s the accompanying distress.

It’s the conflict that twists at Will’s morality, and it’s the brutality.

He passes Will his helmet and fits the strap of his own, waiting for Will to nod his assent that he’s fine for the journey back. It’s a small gesture he receives; a tilt of the head as Will climbs onto the back of the bike and snakes his hands across Hannibal’s middle. The glisten in Will’s eyes is enough to drag a smile to Hannibal’s face. It’s a shimmering, resentful thing. Wounded, and wrathful. It’s an expression that Hannibal wants seared into the softest ends of his nerves, and its one that he is determined to pull out of Will again.

“Home” he tells Will, one foot on the pedal and his thoughts speeding into new ways to deconstruct the meaning of the word.

 

 

*

 

 

Home, for the last few weeks, has been a modestly sized villa in the northern region of Cartagena. The white walls bounce moonlight throughout the interior, and the outdoor pool serves as a mirror for the neons of the city. It’s a beautiful home, for now. Its previous owner, an Emilio Chavez, had been a poor housekeeper, in that he was poorly behaved towards his housekeeper. Emilio had, however, dedicated no small amount of his income to filling his home with extravagantly priced spirits and wines, a detail which both Hannibal and Will were able to appreciate, after.

In this moment, Will is peeling off his motorcycle helmet and is storming towards a bottle of spice-darkened rum on the kitchen counter. It was the only bottle deemed aesthetically acceptable to be displayed in the food preparation area, and Will’s red-crusted fingers are gripping it by the neck. He has yet to make eye contact with Hannibal.

“A glass, at least,” Hannibal suggests.

There’s heat radiating from Will, more than any air conditioning could suppress.

Hannibal places his own helmet on the sideboard next to Will’s and looks pointedly at the cupboard behind Will where the glassware is stored.

He doesn’t say, _be_ _civilised_.

Will is rankled, and it’s a delight.

Hannibal flicks the light switch on, illuminating Will's brittle movements as he takes two wine glasses from the cupboard. He looks unwell; milk-skinned and breathing fast and thin; yet still determined to antagonise.

Hannibal imagines that Will is feeling secure enough in their dynamic, confident enough in Hannibal’s affection, that he can kick at the boundaries that hold them both.

So. He’s being deliberately contrary. A small poke at Hannibal’s love of etiquette and consistency, and Hannibal finds himself charmed by it, and thinks of puppies pissing on carpets to get their owner’s attention.

Will pours until both glasses are half full, placing one in front of Hannibal and holding his own by the bulb as he drinks from it with thirst.

Hannibal doesn’t say, _be careful, drinking with a head injury_.

Hannibal smiles, and he waits.

Some of the tension drops from Will’s shoulders as he downs another inch of the drink. Then a smaller sip, then a wipe of his mouth with the back of his shirt sleeve.

Then, he looks at Hannibal.

The spark in his eyes dims the backdrop of the city panorama by contrast.

“What…what did you _think_ would happen?” Will asks, and there’s a drawl to his words. It’s indignation, and self protection in the way he curls the intonation of his voice as though beckoning the words back to himself after they were spoken.

“I should ask the same of you,” offers Hannibal. It’s a truthful rebuke; he wants to know _precisely_ what spurred Will out to the docks, to the violence that sat there in wait. He could surmise some degree of Will’s motivations; knows that he had suggested their temporary idyll was under threat, that Will owed some debt to their safety if he wanted to enjoy the temporary peace they inhabited. He may have hinted at where the threats may have lain, but Hannibal had not gone so far as to identify any specifics. He wants to _know_ , and he wants to find new ways to encourage Will to tell him.

“You _knew_.”

“You are assuming omnipotence on my part, Will. I cannot claim the honour of it.”

Will’s eyes narrow, then peer at the wine glass. He refills it before speaking again.

“You posed a conundrum,” Will says, carefully. “And you told me how I should solve it.”

He looks at Hannibal, and in his gaze there’s that buttoned in expression of betrayal, and the distance between the two of them seems immediately too great. Hannibal resists the impulse to close it; to smother it and crush the breath from it. Instead, he waits.

“You expected me to fail.”

Hannibal smiles at this; an instinctual response to Will’s grudging vulnerability.

“I had no such expectations. I was concerned, Will, that your recklessness may lead you to a path more hazardous than you were equipped to travel.”

Will smiles, with teeth, into his drink. There’s still red lining his gums, and Hannibal finds himself wondering how the metallic taste will be influencing the flavour of the rum. He wants to taste it.

“Con _cerned_.”

“I was not wrong,” Hannibal says, and he knows it is a cruel thing to say, even before Will’s reaction.

The freshly poured drink disappears down Will’s throat and the glass in his hands smacks against the sideboard, severing stem from base.

“You _want_ ed me to fail,” Will says, spittle lining his words as he pushes the glass stem against the skin of Hannibal’s neck. “You knew I’d screw up.”

Hannibal reaches out a hand to push the improvised weapon away, and is discreetly surprised when the glass presses in. His nerves fizz through his neck as the smallest portion of his skin breaks beneath the pressure.

“So you intend to kill me for coming to your rescue?” Hannibal asks, aware that he has spoken another cruelty, savouring the impact it has on his skin when Will pushes the glass a microdistance further.

Will tenses at the sound of his bluff being called.

“I can’t kill you,” Will admits, though the glass stem remains in place. “Separation is...a terrifying thing.”

Hannibal regards him carefully.

“Do you miss being terrified?” he asks.

“Do _you_?” Will counters. His expression says that he knows he hasn’t earnt terror from Hannibal, not with this.

“I miss terror,” Hannibal answers, and he wraps a hand across Will’s tensed wrist, pushing with incrementally growing strength until the glass is at Will’s side, away from him. _Safe_.

“I thought, tonight, you wanted rid of me,” Will says, softer now. The defeat in his voice tells Hannibal that the pint of rum is starting to dull his caution; he’d never speak so candidly without lubrication.

Hannibal picks each of Will’s fingers away from the glass stem until he holds it in his hands.

“I could never be so impersonal with you, Will.”

He means it, and as Will shifts forward, he feels rigidity inside Will’s trousers as he presses up against him. Behind the inebriation and the inevitable arousal, there’s still a tremble that feels like rage, but it’s thinning, assuming another form.

“But you wanted…” Will hesitates, eyes widening and all semblance of better judgement leaving him through grabbing, pulsing breaths. “You just wanted to watch me get hurt,” he says, and Hannibal feels the way that Will’s erection grows as he voices the realisation.

Hannibal holds the glass stem against the scar of Will’s cheek, close enough to stroke, but not close enough to cut into the scar kept small by his stitches.

“Of course,” Hannibal answers.

 

Will’s fury emerges with a burst that should have been quashed by the injuries of the dockyard altercation. His skin shines with a pallid sweat, and his breath is a rasping thing that doesn’t reach the depths of his lungs, but the fight in him is still…remarkable.

Will doesn’t say, _you’ve seen me suffer enough_.

Instead, Will grabs at the open collar of Hannibal’s maroon shirt and tugs until buttons split and the force of it angles Hannibal towards the tiled kitchen floor.

“Who am I supposed to be to you,” Will says, and it’s a challenge, not a question. “You have me,” he says, and he’s pulling the shirt away, matched by Hannibal pulling the damp fabric from his chest. “You’ve had more of me than I thought I had to offer anyone.”

Hannibal pauses at this; sees the wetness gathered around Will’s eyes and bites down the urge to lick at them.

He has, he knows. But Hannibal knows that it was only ever his to take.

“I have only taken what you are willing to give me,” Hannibal answers, and he moves his right hand to the tautened cotton of Will’s trousers.

He feels his want, his hunger, growing inside him like something primitive.

“And now you want me to give you my… _suffering_ ,” Will says, and his hands are faltering around the waistband of Hannibal’s slacks. “More of it.”

Hannibal has no defence, and agreement would be insubstantial. He reaches a hand round the back of Will’s neck, pulling him towards him. His mouth is open enough only to consume, not devour, but he’s pulling Will, and Will folds into it like an answer, and their mouths are hot, hungry, angry, and Will is speaking in that silent, blood-tanged way that Hannibal hasn’t tasted since they washed up on shore those months ago.

Hannibal pulls back, for breath. Will fidgets again at the buttons on Hannibal’s crotch, and each fumble and jerk pulls a breath into Hannibal’s stomach that feels like being winded.

Hannibal lets himself feel vulnerable to Will’s touch.

He feels the tremble on his groin as Will’s breath, warm and sharp, skims across the swollen head of his cock. He arches off the tile as warm tongue skims his shining, drizzling tip, and he breathes out in frustration as the friction withdraws and Will speaks, low and almost in control.

“Go on, then.”

Hannibal’s thoughts are slower to gather.

“Will?”

Will is poised, hands splaying Hannibal’s thighs and his mouth inches from the strain of his cock, breath hot and now light, shaking.

“You want to. So _do_.”

Hannibal doesn’t say, _there are too many things I want to do in this moment to pull a single one into clarity._

Will thumbs indents into the bare skin of Hannibal’s legs and his expression is pure murder.

“You want it, so do it. Hurt me.”

 

 *


	2. With teeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Creative dentistry/tooth trauma ahead.

Hannibal prides himself on the control he holds over himself. His resolve, when set, is a thing of iron. It is not to be bent by anyone. _Unless_. Unless he allows himself the freedom to shuck it.

The freedom of this choice, Hannibal knows, provides him with the messy variables, and the beauty and damage they entail. It also costs him, dearly.

In this moment, his resolve is being gripped by Will through bloodied fingers.

Hannibal’s pulse is already thudding, and this is how he knows that his armour doesn’t stand a chance.

“ _Hurt_ me.”

When Will says it, it’s not a plea.

It’s spoken through gritted teeth, but it’s Will’s eyes that dismantle the whole concept of self control. Will’s eyes are a night sky lit up by explosions, and Hannibal wants to bite them from their sockets.

Hannibal responds without words, pulling at the top of Will’s pants and drinking in the melody of the choked grunt from Will’s throat. His arms are weaved around Will’s as he shoves the fabric down, breaking eye contact for long enough to survey.

Will is straining, his cock flushed and inviting.

Hannibal knows, _knows_ , that Will’s demand is a play for power, and that anything he does to acquiesce to it may cost him. But his hand is pressed against the side of Will’s hip and there’s a smudging of crimson against the pallid flesh, of bruising not yet bloomed. It’s a taunt, of sorts. It’s something of Will’s that doesn’t belong to him, yet. And so, he begins to own it, pushing fingers against the skin until it turns white and draws a low hiss from Will.

Will claws back in answer, fingers kneading at the skin on Hannibal’s thighs.

It’s less of a protest than it is an invitation.

“Will.”

Will retracts the grip, and something in the obedience draws a low breath out of Hannibal.

“Have you not s –“

Hannibal’s words are stopped by the damp stickiness of Will’s hand against his balls, tacky from the blood still congealing on his palm.

Fingers dance up the stem of his cock, light but purposeful.

“Will…”

“This is what we are,” Will says, something crackling in his voice. “How we are.”

His eyes still read feral, and Hannibal wants, _wants_ so much to let Will continue touching him with the deftness he’s honed, wants to let those bloodied fingers wring him out right now on the kitchen floor, but he knows he can’t. Mustn’t. _Shouldn’t_.

“ _Will_.”

It’s almost shouted, and Hannibal is prying Will’s hands from him, pushing him back with a shunt. He holds on; makes the impact of Will’s back against the tiles a soft one, relatively.

Will is smiling at him, a spiteful smirk with thin red leaking from its seams, and Hannibal fights the urge to smack it from his face. It would be crude, and Will is getting enough delight from his faltering composure already.

Instead, Hannibal wraps a hand around Will’s jaw, feels the heat from recently impacted skin beneath his skin, and pushes the fingers from his other hand in. It’s less a seductive move than an exploration; if there’s blood still leaking from Will’s mouth, it would be prudent to identify the cause before they hit a point where caution becomes impossible.

Will’s arms grappling against his grip are doing nothing to mute the arousal heating his skin and pulling at him with increasing urgency. Neither is the way that his grip on Will’s jaw has his head pinned still, or the way that saliva pools around Hannibal’s fingers as he rummages against teeth. And neither is the sound of protracted vowels leaking out of Will, or the clumsy friction of Will’s cock against his splayed thighs.

Hannibal finds the source of the leaking red; a tooth that shifts easily under the pressure of his fingertips. Having Will breaking apart beneath him is almost too much, even without the necessary friction, and Hannibal takes a slow, steadying breath to still the pulse weighing heavily against his groin.

“You’re losing a tooth, Will,” he says, and there’s too much breath behind his words for them to sound authoritative. He can hear himself, resonating through the room, and the elation is palpable.

Will’s tongue worries at his fingers, and Hannibal quells it by pushing his index finger deeper, resting against the tonsils until Will retches.

He pulls his hand out, momentarily. Lets the mix of blood and saliva drip from his fingers and onto Will’s face, as though to illustrate the point.

Will makes a sound as though he’s trying to speak, and only coughs. He reaches to wipe the dampness from his face, and then curls his hand towards Hannibal’s cock. As though undoing him gently would be any less violent than fighting him.

Hannibal squeezes at Will’s jaw, tight. _He still has this under control_.

“Will.”

Will’s hands still.

“Lay your hands down at your sides,” Hannibal instructs. A simple command, and yet whether or not Will can follow it will dictate the tone of all that may follow.

Will hesitates, mouth still half held open and the fight in his eyes turning hungry. It takes a shaking breath until Will obeys, laying his hands flat against the floor. He doesn’t flinch when the sliced palm hits the tile, and for a second Hannibal imagines that Will is looking for approval in this. Hannibal doesn’t grant it.

“Turn them over,” Hannibal says, voice low, almost gentle but for the threat weaved through it.

Will does as he’s asked. Told.

Hannibal releases his hold on Will’s jaw, clambering off him enough to pull his trousers fully off.

“Good,” he tells Will. “This may be uncomfortable,” he tells him, straddling Will’s stomach as and savouring the expression of hopefulness in Will's eyes.

Hannibal positions his knee above the cup of Will’s upturned hand, hovering the joint a fingernail’s width above the sliced skin of Will’s right hand, before leaning his weight into it.

Will shouts out; a reluctant and guilty sound. Hannibal smiles.

“This will hurt,” Hannibal says, leaning over Will’s face and resting his hand back on his jaw. “This is what you wanted?”

Will’s eyes are watering and he blinks once. Hannibal takes it as assent, the feel of Will’s erection teasing his skin offering further validation.

Hannibal reaches his fingers back into Will’s mouth, towards the back where the loose tooth shifts at its root. Will is breathing hot and fast, and Hannibal can feel him angling his legs up, tensing and holding himself rigid in anticipation of the inevitable.

Hannibal affords himself a moment to savour; this, he thinks, he will suspend in the halls of his memory palace. The dried blood garlanding Will’s face, the desperation and hunger shared by the two of them, the invited cruelty and the _need_ , all but writhing beneath him.

Hannibal locks his finger and thumb around the tooth. Will stares up at him, fury and acceptance all held in a wet-eyed blink. He's ready. It takes only a second; a tug, a twist, and a final wrench to pull the loose molar from the jaw.

And then it’s there, in his hand. Stringy with spit, and bloody.

Hannibal clenches at it, feels the short prongs of the root digging into his palm, and over the hum of endorphins, he’s aware of Will’s keening, spitting sounds of distress.

“Jesus _fuck_ …”

There’s a whitening around the sides of Hannibal’s vision and he should have known that this would be more than he could withstand, in the circumstances. He shifts his weight back, still resting on Will’s hands and moving close enough to feel himself lightly trapping the tip of Will’s cock; damp, now, he notes; beneath him. Hannibal reaches both hands towards himself, still gripping the tooth, and drags the bone against his erection. It's profoundly intimate. And it's Will, splintered and breaking and held tight against him. Then he’s spilling, surging, dragging everything out of him as the roots of the tooth play at his sensitized skin. He shudders as the last drizzle falls, his muscles warm and sated.

Focus returns to his vision with a welcome swiftness, and Will is a tensed, coiled stretch of rage under his weight, now painted across his chest with marks more temporary than his scars.

“Incredible boy,” Hannibal murmurs, his muscles already sagging where Will’s are vibrating beneath him. He strokes at Will’s face, at the smears of saliva there, and is slow to recoil when Will bites in the vicinity of his hand.

“Shh.”

“Hannibal, _please_ …”

It comes out in a slur. This is not the best angle for Will, he knows, with blood pooling to the back of his throat. And yet, the music of the struggle seems a fair trade for caution, for now.

“Was this what you wanted, Will?” Hannibal asks, withdrawing his hand and shifting further back, with purpose. Will twitches beneath him.

“It’s what _you_ wanted,” Will manages.

“If I move, will you keep your hands where they are?” asks Hannibal, voice steadying. It’s tempting, he thinks, to keep Will in this state; pent up to the point of incoherence, and immobilised.

Will does not appear to be able to answer, and for a moment, Hannibal fears that more damage was done than intended. It passes, as Will opens his mouth, spits, and answers.

“If I keep my hands still, will you move yours?”

It’s a polite enough request. Reasonable, even, especially in the circumstances.

“Are you in a position to make demands of me?” Hannibal asks instead.

“Would you prefer it if I begged?” Will asks, and it’s acerbic, his voice, as though begging hasn’t infused any of his actions since they got home. It’s something Hannibal will work on, he thinks, but perhaps now is not the time.

“You shouldn’t tempt me,” Hannibal says. “Will you stay?”

“You haven’t answered me,” Will points out, and he’s breathy, desperate, and it’s exquisite.

“Nor you me. It seems we are at an impasse.”

Will shudders, but keeps his hands where they are, clenching them into fists.

Hannibal waits. Three heavy seconds to confirm that Will is going to stay, that he’s not retaliating. Yet.

The instinct to make Will wait has not yet subdued, and with his own desires so fully sated, Hannibal has little motivation to attend to Will beyond reciprocity.

But, courtesy has always held high value to him, and the situation requires some form of resolution.

Will's eyes in this moment are a plague, and Hannibal is content to let their stare roll over him as he shifts further down, resting his mouth about the smooth shine of the tip of him. He inhales; drinks in sweat and bitterness. _His_ scent.

There are questions and accusations still lingering in the air around them, and Hannibal wants, needs to address them, but Will is shifting with grudging eagerness beneath him.

“Ugh, _god_ …”

Hannibal folds his mouth around Will’s balls, tastes the saltiness of tension and withdraws; Will’s hips are jerking, pushing him off-balance. Impatient.

That Will’s hands have remained obediently clenched by his side is the only reason that Hannibal obliges him so quickly. He has, he reasons, suffered enough.

Hannibal places a firm hand against the bruising on Will’s hip. Uses his other to touch the base of Will’s cock, with the softest pressure.

The noise Will makes in answer is more of a gurgle than a gasp. _Poor boy_.

Hannibal dips his head again, lapping at Will’s cock and feeling the weight of him heavy against his tongue; silken, almost, and Hannibal thinks he will never tire of the imperceptible changes in the weight and taste of Will when he has him this way. He rolls his tongue against the skin, increases the pressure of his fingers, and then licks a stripe towards the slit. For a moment, he wonders if he should have pressed the tooth into Will’s softest skin as he had himself. The moment disintegrates as Will shakes on his tongue, and then Hannibal’s mouth is filling, sour yet so beautifully intoxicating, and he’s closing his throat around the taste of Will, savouring it.

His hands grip onto Will’s hips, and only now does Will allow his hands to move. Hannibal watches them unfurl, and accepts them as they rest gently shaking, onto his shoulders.

“I’m concerned, Will,” Hannibal says, his voice soft. “If you make this demand of me, it cannot be good for you.” Hannibal pauses, breathes in the scent of the aftermath.

“Yet I have no inclination to deny myself,” he adds, a small concession to honesty regarding his impulses. He knows he owes Will this much, at least.

Will hums an agreement, pulling himself up to a sitting position, legs tucked between Hannibal’s.

His chest is sticky as he presses up against Hannibal.

“I don't expect you to deny it,” Will answers. “It’s why I asked.”

The air is thick between them, and Will has the expression of one who will not divulge his secrets without drastic persuasion.

“Am I to know what sparked the change?” he asks, knowing that no answer Will gives will be free from cryptic misdirection.

“It’s less a _change_ than it is a progression,” Will says, his mouth is moving stiffly.

Hannibal decides that right now, some form of clean up is a more pressing and productive use of their time, and will be easier than siphoning admissions out of Will. He nods to show that he understands, and moves to gather their weighted, sticky bodies from the floor. He threads an arm under the bend of Will’s knees, still trapped in rumpled fabric, and another across his back, tucking his hands beneath Will’s armpit until he can lift him bodily.

He’s an easy weight to carry, and holding him like this, with his muscles softening in his grip, Hannibal feels a swell in him which reaches deeper than any biological response. _His_.

Will smiles, loose and as close to content as he ever allows himself to be, with Hannibal.

“I think,” Will offers, as Hannibal steps over the threshold to the white bathroom, “That I wanted to remind myself.”

Hannibal dips, resting him on the floor, stroking at his hair and untangling the blood-cracked tendrils of curls.

“Remind yourself of what, Will?”

Hannibal twists on the taps, testing the temperature of the water. His own cleanliness is pressing, but he’d rather address Will’s damages before he allows himself the luxury of relaxation.

Will shakes his trousers off, smiles up at Hannibal.

“Remind myself of the monster we are.”

He looks satisfied as he says it, as though it’s a truth which comforts him to the bones.

Hannibal turns from him to hide the smile that colours his very soul in this moment.

 _His_.

 

 


	3. A kind of nurturing

 

The calm that settles in the bathroom is more than simple contentedness. The water hums with Hannibal’s fingers dipping through its surface as he washes at Will’s skin. The overhead light has been dimmed, and candles now line the foot of the tub, flickering against the white walls and painting Will as a slowly moving Caravaggio. The smell of blood is gradually giving way to the cedar of the candlewax, the sage of the bath oil, and the lingering afterglow of sex. Hannibal is slow to wash the remnants of it from Will’s chest, seeing the cracking substance as something akin to a brand. Crude, perhaps, but not unpleasant.

The greatest source of calm in this room is the smile on Will’s face; a small and easy thing that shows more in his downturned eyes than in his mouth. He presents no resistance to Hannibal’s insistence on cleaning him, and seems to welcome the intimacy. No small amount of his demeanour has been loosened by the tumbler of rum which he discreetly gargles at short intervals, having argued that it was a swifter and more pleasant steriliser of the fresh hole in his gums than any other solution. Hannibal had disagreed, pointing out the sugar as an irritant, and he’d started to talk of the dangers of thinning the blood when it should be left to clot undisturbed, but Will had kissed him then; short, just a press of lips and the briefest sharing of a breath, no teeth; and Hannibal had quietened and hastened to fetch the drink.

Their touches may have become more frequent these last months, but they are no less precious for it. Though they often seem infused with motive, with caution, or both, they are gradually being twined through their daily interactions, and Hannibal believes that by now, they must have laid down roots.

Hannibal is also learning to appreciate the way that Will is expanding his means and methods of influence.

“This looks worrisome, Will,” Hannibal says, keeping the tone and timbre of his voice gentle as he lifts a cloth to the cut in Will’s leg. “It seems deep.”

“It’s not.”

Will answers with the tone of someone acclimatised to assessing the depths and severity of the wounds gracing his flesh. And already, the tender peace of the bathroom is growing brittle.

Hannibal pads at the cut, frowning. Thin swirls of orange leak from the sliced lips of skin. It may not be deep, he concedes, but its placement; into the meat of the calf muscle, sideways; will be something of an obstacle to fast movement as it heals.

Pragmatism dictates that they will have to avoid unnecessary altercations for the time being. Which means that Hannibal will need to learn the intricacies of Will’s evening’s interactions with the Policía; a militarised police force, no matter how rife with corruption, is no welcome adversary if either of them are below par. The questions Hannibal needs to ask will require more coherence than he trusts Will to have in this moment, though he is reluctant to permit too much time to pass before he can pull all the details from him. Not least because when Will has unshared information, he has power. Hannibal has no desire to be disadvantaged.

Pragmatism is fast becoming secondary to a more urgent sensation vibrating through Hannibal as he dabs at the wound again, this time with his fingers.

Will flinches, lets out a low hiss.

Hannibal skims the slit of the incision again with his fingertip, gentle, much more gently than he’d like. He’s familiar with the feel of opening flesh up beneath his hands, beneath his weapons, but it’s always to an end. A precursor to death. And yet this is Will, and death has eluded him repeatedly and now, Hannibal wishes for him to remain safe from its finality.

Whatever his wishes, he still cannot help but acknowledge the urge he feels to press his mouth against the opening, to taste and to disassemble the skin, and to savour every reaction it would bring; the squirming, the gasping, perhaps, the submission, or the fight.

He resists the urges as each of them blooms fresh, and pulls his fingers a short distance away.

So this, for Hannibal, is new; he can savour the breaking, and the risk. And he can aid with the repair. And he finds himself suspended in uncertainty in this moment, with Will’s leaking skin so close to the nerves tingling the ends of his fingers. To revel more thoroughly in the breaking, or to nurture. To heal. To remind himself that he is not the only person present in this room, and though Will has offered him invitation to do damage, he would favour a more explicit mutuality to anything that occurs. He moves himself to the head of the bathtub, away from the temptation, and begins massaging Will’s hair.

There’s a thin hum of appreciation from Will.

This pulls a smile to Hannibal’s face before he’s aware of his own enjoyment, and this, he thinks, is the reaction he should pay more heed to; the instinctive desire to craft a world in which he coexists with Will as something akin to a partner, not a puzzle nor a threat.

This is also the instinct which will see him laid at his barest. He’ll work with that, he thinks.

On Hannibal’s prompt, Will shifts himself further down the bathtub, allowing his head to be momentarily submerged beneath the water to pull the shampoo from his hair. Hannibal imagines this as a fresh baptism, of sorts. He watches the water cascading across Will’s arms and his still pale chest, as he pulls himself up and for a second, Will looks like something holy.

Hannibal thinks of how to render the image in pencil, and decides that no gallery would be fit to hold the image.

A second later, and Will is shaking his head in that doglike fashion that Hannibal has yet to dissuade him from, and is pushing himself out of the tub gracelessly.

So. That’s the poetry of that over, then.

The spray of water hisses as it lands in the well of one of the candles, and though Will still looks content, his posture is faintly guarded as he reaches for a towel.

At some point in these last minutes, a quiet distance has stretched between them, and Hannibal cannot think of the words which could close it.

Hannibal rushes to pass him a dry flannel before he can colour the towel with blood from his legs, and watches Will intently as he plucks the medical tin from the cabinet and dabs antiseptic around the cut. There’s no reverence in the way Will cleans and then dresses the wound with gauze; it’s methodical, as regular as brushing teeth. It’s an opportunity wasted, Hannibal thinks.

“How is your mouth?” he asks Will, unplugging the bath. He tries to sound caring, unsure if that would be believed, coming from his mouth. He hopes that it could be.

“Sore.”

There’s no resentment in the way Will says it, nor any demand for sympathy.

It simply is, just as the two of them simply _are_.

Will wraps the towel around himself and reaches for the tumbler of rum which almost certainly now has bathwater in it.

“I’m…exhausted,” Will says, padding across the tiles to the door, and not to Hannibal. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” offers Hannibal reflexively.

As he watches Will walk stiffly across the corridor to their bedroom, Hannibal is left with the distinct awareness that he has not provided any totality of comfort, nor reprieve, for Will. And that, if they are to continue in any way which _is_ to their mutual benefits, Hannibal will have to try a little harder. He will need to impose some structure on the way these events play out, and he will need to find a way to close the pockets of emotional distance between himself and Will. They exist out of a need to preserve; for both of them, not just for Will. But Hannibal knows that he can insinuate himself into those small spaces. He also knows that Will should benefit from this; if Will is feeling so jagged as to wish himself torn apart at Hannibal’s hands, Hannibal needs to understand Will’s needs in a way that he currently cannot.

Hannibal rinses out the bath and begins refilling it as his thoughts race from suggestions of strategy.

A notion pulls at him, something unfamiliar. He dares to hope at the implications it presents to him. But this, at its basest level…it pulls at a level of ravenous affection that he had long assumed was unavailable to one such as himself. He’s already been gifted with the psychological bond that has long been proved unbreakable, and for a while he’d felt that it could be enough. And then he tasted the tentative embrace of physicality, a gradually evolving thing with new barriers to disassemble. But this, what Will has suggested…this opens a hunger that Hannibal has never had opportunity to quench with the living.

Brutality and fondness, working in visceral tandem with each other.

He sits in the bathtub, still warm from Will, and closes his eyes.

This, he thinks, could be magnificent.

 

As long as he doesn’t push things too far.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp! Thank you for the encouragement, in its many forms! I'm so pleased that people like this awful dynamic, and I'm such a sucker for the somewhat grudging romance that underpins it all. This was a pretty gentle chapter, all things considered, though you can probably tell where this is headed...
> 
> And on a practical note: I'm going to be trying very hard to get the next bit up by Friday, as I'll be away from the work computer for 10 days after that, which seems like a very long time. So! Wish me luck, and I'll do my very best.


	4. "Uncharted"

 

 

When Hannibal wakes, Will is still sleeping; cocooned in the white feather duvet, a thin rivulet of drool clinging to his stubble and pooling on the pillow. It’s orange, and as Hannibal’s sense of smell awakens, sour. Horribly, nauseatingly sour.

Hannibal allows himself a moment to catalogue the sight and the unfortunate smells that accompany it. The scruff of curls, the flicker behind closed eyelids, the rasped rumbling of snoring from his open mouth, the bedcovers clenched protectively around him.

Will looks more rested than he has in weeks.

The contrast between this Will and the Will he watched biting a chunk out of another man’s arm is a vast thing. Hannibal knows which version he prefers, but he delights in each point in the spectrum, even the softest ones.

He rests his nose in Will’s hair, allows the smell of sage shampoo to block the tang of infection in the air. Just for a moment.

Will shifts, then, a halt in his breathing and the smallest adjustment to his clutch on the duvet.

To the kitchen, then.

Will can have his peace, for now.

 

 

Hannibal waits until Will has adjusted fully to his wakefulness before he broaches any conversational subject more dense than mere pleasantries.

The midday sun beams at the patio and mosquitos clog the air. Hannibal sits beneath the sun umbrella, tablet in hand. Lunch is prepared; a bottle of sparkling elderflower water in a marble cooler on the table, and a modest spread of garlic-infused focaccia, pureed potato with crushed black beans, and rolled prosciutto laid out in a glass-lidded dish.

Will greets him with a noise which is marginally more polite than a grunt.

“I thought some carbohydrates would replenish your strength,” Hannibal offers, folding the lid over the tablet and pouring the fizz into Will’s glass, then his own.

Will nods, sits down with a scrape of his chair, then seems to consider his manners.

“Thanks.”

Hannibal nods in approval, and wonders if this is how Will trained his dogs; stern looks and positive reinforcement.

“Please, help yourself. I do not trust the insect life not to devour our food before we have a chance to savour it.”

Will takes the cue, lifting the lid and picking modest portions from the dish for his own plate. The garlic is, even to Hannibal’s nose, quite pungent. Will sniffs at it as he waits for Hannibal to fill his own plate. There’s something hesitant and intangible between them; a shift in their ever-changing dynamic which requires some form of dissection before it can be embraced. In this moment, however, food takes precedence.

“Please, Will. Eat.”

Will does as he is asked, and for a few moments, there is quiet between them. Will smiles, and it’s more than just the satisfaction of a starch-heavy meal to break his hunger. There’s mischief in it, and Hannibal is wary.

“Is something amusing?”

Hannibal does not mean to sound stern when he says it, and he suspects that Will does not mean to look apologetic in response.

“You’ve made garlic bread,” Will points out.

Hannibal bites back any urge to question the humour of it; it seemed an elegant way to deter the mosquitos from feasting on them, and Hannibal sees no harm in preserving his status as unchallenged head of the food chain. Will’s attempts to denigrate his cuisine by likening it to the boatyard meals of his childhood are seldom welcome, and this is another thing he imagines training Will out of.

For a moment, he envisions doing so by force; with a snap of his arm against the warm flesh of Will’s backside, or perhaps with a tug of a belt wrapped close around the meat of his neck, pulled close enough to stop breath. A fair response to rudeness, Hannibal thinks; if Will’s lungs will only be used for spilling insults, no matter how mild, he could limit how readily they can be used. Hannibal attempts to discard the images now playing in vivid technicolour through the wet membranes of his mind. It’s crude. It comes with tawdry associations that Hannibal had believed himself indifferent to; Will has yielded to him in ways far more devastating than this. And yet, Hannibal feels a phantom pressure on his palms as he imagines kneading the skin of Will’s buttocks, and now there’s a hint of tightness to his trousers. This, Hannibal thinks, is inconvenient.

“It’s good,” Will says with some caution when Hannibal’s face fails to register any levity.

Hannibal imagines Will using that cautious voice to navigate his way through the demands Hannibal will make of him, imagines Will seeking to please. It sits uneasily, this version. Like an overlay which bears only passing resemblance to the image beneath. Hannibal replaces it swiftly with thoughts of Will biting back curses, challenging every request, and only conceding when it matches his own desires. This version, Hannibal believes. A sweat is forming on the back of his neck and his stomach feels coiled in loops and he needs, quite urgently, to derail this current freight load of fantasies.

“I need to ask you about last night at the docks,” he says by way of distraction.

Will’s expression clouds momentarily when Hannibal mentions it. The sort of clouding that preludes a storm, perhaps. Will swallows, takes a sip of the water and his shoulders stiffen. There’s that writhing indignation, and Hannibal can almost smell it.

“You were there. You watched it all. What’s to ask?”

“Not all,” Hannibal says. Defensiveness feels uncomfortable on his tongue. “Enough to know that my intervention was necessary.”

Hannibal feels some modicum of control returning to him. Not enough, yet. But his current seated position is becoming marginally more bearable as he concentrates on Will’s words, and not the understated force behind them.

“Worried that if I spilled my brains on the concrete there wouldn’t be enough left over for you to eat?”

Will doesn’t sound snippish when he says it. Thoughtful. Wistful, even. They’ve come so far, in terms of trust, though some wedges between them seem immovable.

“I had no desire to see you dead, nor to eat you.”

“That’s not entirely true,” answers Will, and he’s smiling again, a filth-tinged grin that falls off his face a second later.

“Will.”

Self-control appears to be slipping from Hannibal like silk from a glass shelf.

“What did you expect to happen, Hannibal?”

His face is hardened again, scar glistening with sun-formed sweat and eyes glittering in synchronicity with the pool.

Hannibal’s voice is steel, now.

“I expected you to navigate your way out of your misguided altercation.”

“Mis _guided_.” Will takes another sip of the water and pushes his plate to the side. “ _You_ guided me there.”

Hannibal can see Will’s point. Admitting it, however, is a concession too far.

“I merely told you we had attracted attention when we were last seen together. I didn’t instruct you to identify the source of that attraction and then allow yourself to be beaten bloody by it.”

Even as he speaks the words, he replays the scents and sensations of Will’s blood-wet skin against his own, and he chides his brain for its lack of cooperation with his need to maintain his own dignity.

“No. No, that was just a lucky side-effect.”

Hannibal finds that his appetite for food has been thoroughly quelled. His hunger, however, has not.

He’s missed this aspect of Will. Pinched-in ferocity, all verbal claws and more than a threat of bite.

“I had hoped our sparring practice would have stood you in more favourable stead against any potential attacker” Hannibal continues. It’s an unkind criticism, he knows; the encounter is not one he would have personally sought unless unavoidable. And, truthfully, he had expected Will to do no more than seek information about the two men who'd seemed so interested in them; to identify their connections, the risk they posed, and whether their passing attentions could have been diverted in ways less outwardly violent. But then, Will has never treated his expectations as things to merely meet.

“You’re baiting me,” Will says, and his stance is changing. It’s a little bolder, the shoulders thrown back as far as the chair will allow, and his chin incrementally higher. “You thrive off my…my _failures_.”

“If you survive them, they are not failures.”

“But you’re willing to take chances with that,” Will says, and there’s an emotional distance as he says it. It tugs at something inside Hannibal, that unidentifiable pull of muscles that sit beyond his stomach, and the sensation is not unlike pain.

“Not at the hands of strangers, no.”

Will swats at the air, fighting off some unseen bug and scratching at his bare arms. He doesn’t answer.

“We have a new life here,” Hannibal says, an attempt at a balm. “Together.”

Will catches his stare, and holds it. Still, he says nothing.

“I need to know if last night’s actions have jeopardised that. If we are to be pursued by more Policía, or if those men were merely opportunists.”

Will purses his lips, and for a moment looks as though he might provide some answer; some assurance of safety, or an alarm. The moment passes without words, and Will remains, staring, expectant.

“I would not have you torn from me, Will, nor would I accept your destruction at the hands of any other.”

Will sighs at this, a burdened sound. He breaks eye contact and licks his lips before he speaks, slowly and with a calculated lack of venom.

“Just at your hands, then?”

And then Will is looking at Hannibal, through him, into him, and in all the ways that people have only ever gazed at people in poems, and in prose too intense to have anything but a violent end.

Hannibal finds himself winded by the expression.

“You would allow it?” Hannibal asks, through a dry throat and tensed muscles.

“What do you think?”

Hannibal has no answer beyond a dumb acknowledgement. Here, he has Will’s request from the previous night, only now it is spoken with a sober tongue and wide, wet eyes.

“I believed you had made that demand out of wounded spite and adrenaline.”

Hannibal isn’t used to confessing his doubts. He thinks of how his words appear to spilling from him, and then, he thinks just of spilling.

“And yet you acted on it,” Will says, and his voice is infuriatingly calm. If what Will is asking of him requires Hannibal to have control, he imagines that he will find it remarkably difficult to maintain the upper hand. His trousers now feel like a veritable prison, and no volume of sparkling water is pulling the dryness from his mouth. He reaches into his pocket and rides his fingers over the ridges of the tooth nestled there. _His_ , now.

“You presented a compelling invitation at the time, if I recall.”

“My words, or my blood?”

Hannibal feels the frown forming on his face before he has time to consider his reaction.

“It’s not an accusation,” Will clarifies, one hand resting on the table. Close enough for Hannibal to reach. “An observation, and a truth about us.”

Hannibal lets go of the tooth, near lightheaded at the prospect of more parts of Will, perhaps less literally, folding into his possession. He draws his hand up to the table and rests it a short distance from Will’s.

“An inevitability of us, I think” Will continues, and he sounds wholly grounded. “We’re closer to who we are when we’re dancing around our own mortality.”

“It’s a captivating dance.”

Will nods. “Probably the only one we know.”

Hannibal’s hesitancy reveals itself in his expression again; he doesn’t want this to be how they are simply for want of an alternative. He wants it…he _wants_ _it_. He thinks he’d want it however it was offered, but there’s that still unfamiliar need for mutuality that reminds him that maybe, Will’s wants in this take precedence over his own. It's an unwelcome notion.

Will appears to read him, placing a warm hand over where his is still resting on the table.

His stare is still a liquid, potent thing, and he’s gripping Hannibal’s fingers.

“I mean it, Hannibal. And that’s fine.”

The air feels thicker.

“This is somewhat uncharted territory for me, Will,” Hannibal volunteers. “We would be wise to establish…”

The sentence remains incomplete as Will’s incredulous laugh cuts through all sound.

“You led me to a _torture_ _museum_ in Florence.”

Will’s cheeks are flushed pink as he says it, and Hannibal hopes, quite desperately, that Will is sharing in at least a portion of the physical discomfort that this conversation is generating.

“You had a basement strung with hooks,” Will continues, “ _you’ve carved people into sculptures and stitched flesh to flesh_ …I don’t think you can claim naivety on this one.”

Will isn’t mentioning the not inconsiderable detail of these examples; that they were features of designs with finality.

“So you wish to see yourself as one of my victims?”

Will doesn’t flinch at this. He loosens his grasp on Hannibal’s hand, the skin now clammy.

To his eternal credit, he doesn’t suggest in any way that he already is.

“No more than I would want to see you as one of mine,” he answers.

Hannibal is not wholly reassured by this answer.

Flies are settling on the remains of the uncovered food, and Hannibal is still trying to slow the hard pulse still toying at his groin. Will, despite his flushed cheeks and scratch to his voice, is looking infinitely more composed than Hannibal feels.

Establishing the terms of their imminent future seems to require more initiation from Hannibal, though he suspects that Will has far clearer ideas about what he wants than he will ever be persuaded to articulate.

And now, he’s imagining finding ways to make Will ask for what he wants.

Oh, he doesn’t want Will to be weak in his demands. But he would _love_ to hear Will beg.

“Is it an absence of control that you hunger for, Will?”

He hears his voice sound more authoritative than it feels, tempered by the tremble that now runs through him. The corner of Will's mouth twitches. _Interesting_.

“Or is it fear?”

Something darker flickers in Will’s gaze at that. An admission, then.

“Perhaps the knowledge that I could take you in any way I see fit, ruin and keep you, hold you powerless until it suits me to grant you reprieve?”

Hannibal isn’t sure when he says it that this is what Will wants, but there’s a damp sound like the thinnest of gasps that answers him. A fortunate guess.

“The knowledge,” Will says, slowly and with a shake in his words, “That you would take delight in it.”

Hannibal’s pants feel damp and he wants to believe it is only from sweat, but knowledge of his own biology won’t entertain the thought.

“We should…establish limits, of some sorts,” Hannibal says, somewhat reluctantly.

He narrows his eyes at the scoffing noise Will makes.

“I’m not sure I have any limits that you haven’t laid waste to, Hannibal.”

Hannibal does not correct Will on the context of such limits; he has no plans to introduce a bone saw to the bedroom, nor gut him for sexual gratification.

Something in the alcoves of Hannibal’s mind tries to question those assertions and it takes a long moment to quash it.

“I mean to be serious, Will. These things benefit from a structure, and from there being opportunities for you to protect yourself from unforeseen…outcomes.”

“You excel in creating unforeseen outcomes,” Will says, and his voice is closer to the pitch of a whisper. His seated stance is almost rigid, and he’s chewing on his lip.

“If you present me with no restrictions to what I may do to you,” Hannibal says, voice infused with iron, “Then you will have no choice but to suffer the full impact of it all.”

Will nods, his tongue flicking to the outside of his mouth, and then a lumpen swallow in his throat.

“I’m not calling you ‘Sir’,” he says, and his voice is barely present, infused with so much want.

“I wouldn’t be so dismissive of the rituals and rites of such interactions, Will.”

Will doesn’t look chastised, not quite, but he bites his lips shut and waits for Hannibal to fill the breathy quiet.

“Not all associations with such proclivities are created solely to cheapen the experience. You may even find some comfort in the structures. And, no. I much prefer my name on your lips than any title.”

Will smiles at this, a slight and gnarled thing.

“’Uncharted’, Hannibal? Really?”

Hannibal places his hand over where Will’s is fondling the glass, pinning it still. His little finger skims the bone of Will’s wrist, and he holds more firmly, makes a clamp of his hand and savours the way Will tenses, swallows, and accepts the imposed restriction.

“In practice, yes,” Hannibal asserts. “Though not for want of a living subject to indulge such things with.”

“You’ve had plenty of living subjects,” Will says. “You just killed them all.”

Hannibal’s expression hardens, rigid, and he finds himself close to breathlessness with the pressure, so much pressure, close to bursting through him.

“So if I want to remain safe from death…”

Will has a look of mischief again as he speaks, only now it’s glistening in sweat and held in place by the clench in his jaw.

“…I shouldn’t do anything to antagonise you?”

And then there’s a new pressure that Hannibal can’t process, _can’t hold on to_ , and as he looks at Will he sees that his other hand is no longer above the table. The realisation matches the uninvited feel of a finger skimming upwards through the fabric of his pants.

“Will…”

And then the touch, still muted by cloth, it reaches the underside of his cock. Just a touch, and a violent smile on Will’s face, and Hannibal spills. It’s a hot, frantic spasm, and it shakes him through to the base of his spine and it’s trapped inside his clothes and it’s filthy and it’s _his_.

There’s so much heat in Hannibal’s face when he speaks, finally, through gritted teeth.

“If we are continuing this trajectory,” he says, faintly breathless and biting back indignity, “Then an act such as that…”

Will holds his smile. _Insouciant_.

“…Would necessitate some form of punishment, yes?”

Will nods, swallows again in that throat-clenching way.

“Yes,” he answers. “I suppose it would.”

 

 

 

 


	5. Payback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hannibal has his very own interpretation of the concept of 'punishment', and nobody loses any teeth this time.

 

 

 

Hannibal is keenly aware of how desperately he needs to clean himself. His trousers are already clinging to him in the midday heat, and now they’re tacky; congealed with the effects of Will’s teasing.

Hannibal is many things in this moment. Proud, certainly. Grudgingly grateful, even, to Will. He also knows that his enthusiastic reaction to Will’s goading has removed no small amount of control from his grasp, and this, Hannibal knows, is the thing he must tend to first.

Will is sipping at his water and gazing contemplatively over the panorama of the city. Their home, now. Appearing as a sun tinged paradise, only when viewed from a distance, and only ever on the surface.

Hannibal allows him these moments of staring outward whilst he adjusts himself discreetly beneath the table.

“Will,” he begins, his plan formulating only as he speaks. “Would you be so kind as to remove the dishes?”

Will’s attention returns to Hannibal swiftly, and there’s more sweat in his hairline than just the sun’s measure. He looks keenly uncomfortable.

Payback will be a treat.

“Quickly.”

Will pauses before he obeys the instruction. His expression is not yet a readable thing, flitting between hesitancy and appearing to calculate Hannibal’s intentions, and something else indiscernible. Hannibal doesn’t allow himself a smile in return; for now, getting Will to do his bidding is little more than a practicality.

And as Will stands, balancing the plates on one arm and gripping the glass serving dish across his cut palm, Hannibal appreciates the view; Will’s trousers are humiliatingly tight around the front of him, and his gait is a stiff and ungainly thing.

It’s four delicately arranged paces before Will reaches the door. Hannibal waits until Will’s hand is on the white handle until he calls to him.

“Will?”

Will’s expression is a soft grimace as he turns to face him.

“Will.”

He appears to understand the cue; silence is not becoming.

“Hannibal?”

Hannibal offers him a thin slice of a smile.

“Will, I would like you to wash those.”

Will nods, remembers himself, and offers an acquiescent _yes_.

“And when you are done, I want you to prepare a glass of warm water with salt. Wash your mouth with it. Thoroughly.”

Will’s arms are unsteady under the weight of the crockery, the mass of it pressing into his injured hand, and Hannibal feels a twinge of something like satisfaction at Will’s stoic discomfort.

“I don’t wish your mouth to succumb to further infection after the work we did on aiding your last recovery.”

Will nods.

“Okay.”

The memories of the scrabbles through pharmacies for antibiotics before they crossed the first border, of the taste of dying skin, of the fear that their injuries could somehow render them fallible after all they’d survived; these are still fresh, and carry with them a small terror devoid of any thrill. Hannibal is in no rush for either of them to fall prey to any treachery of biology.

Treachery, Hannibal has vowed, is a tool he will carefully whittle until it does his bidding only.

“And, Will?”

Will is through the door now, still some steps from any surface he could rest the plates on. His face is now reading a mild disappointment; this is not the sort of punishment that presents much scope for excitement, though his erection is still pressing visibly through his trouser fabric.

“ _Hannibal_.”

“You are not to touch yourself in any way.”

Will’s jaw is clenched tight as he says that he understands. Hannibal looks away from him, picks up his tablet and feigns indifference to Will’s frustration.

It is a full ten minutes until Will emerges from the kitchen, mouth smelling of saline and hand stung with soap. He walks to Hannibal’s chair, holding two glasses of something opaque and faintly alcoholic. _Rum_. His gait is less impeded with want, though his expression is still expectant.

When Will’s hands are within reach of Hannibal, his right one placing the glass in front of the now closed tablet, Hannibal slides his hand around the nearest wrist and holds it, rigid.

“Obedience suits you, I think.”

Will bristles. Hannibal can smell the dim aroma of arousal on him, still clinging with some apparent reluctance.

“Did you have something else in mind, Hannibal?”

Hannibal has many, many things in mind. And none of them will be given to Will with any swiftness.

“Of course.”

He pulls at Will’s wrist, tugging and then twisting it in such a way that Will has no choice but to bend his arm to it, and then as Hannibal pulls his arm lower, reaching his other to hold Will’s elbow, Will can only shift his body to follow, until the motion sees him with one knee on the ground.

“Good.”

And then Will is on both knees, open mouth temptingly close to Hannibal’s messed lap. Hannibal may be feeling a stirring of nerves still not fully recovered, but Will is positively straining inside the confines of his trousers. Hannibal has not yet released his wrist from his grasp.

“My trousers are becoming uncomfortable, Will.”

Will licks at his lips with a lack of self-awareness and moves his left hand up to Hannibal’s waist. There’s hope in his eyes, as though if he performs to expectations, he’ll be granted his reward. Hannibal uses his free hand to swat Will’s away.

“With your teeth, I think.”

Will nods, hisses out a _yes_ , and approaches the challenge with the determination of one who has no desire to fall short of any demand made of him. He leans forward, his free hand limp at his side and his right held at an angle behind his back, tight in Hannibal’s grasp, the leverage pushing him more fully into the nest of Hannibal’s lap. Will’s chin nudges against Hannibal’s hardening cock through the friction of the fabric, and his teeth clink against the button of his pants.

It’s probably kinder, Hannibal thinks, to have his legs parted just so. But as he feels Will’s tongue fumbling against the catch of the button hole, feels the heat of his damp breath through his tainted trousers, Hannibal imagines closing his legs like this; shutting Will into the stiff folds of fabric and counting out the seconds until the pockets of air arounds Will’s nose and mouth emptied and he’d start twitching, fighting his way out of Hannibal’s grip.

Hannibal eases out a breath as he reminds himself, somewhat sternly, that he is not attempting to kill Will, nor to pressure him to a fight, or scare him unduly. Not now, at least.

There’s a tickle against his stomach from Will’s nose, below the scarring of the bullet hole, and warm, warmer breath, as Will holds the ridge of Hannibal’s trousers against the inside of his front teeth, pushing the button neatly through the hole with his tongue.

 _Oh_.

Teeth find the top of the zipper. Sticky metal slinks across coiled hair, and warm saliva follows the trail to the join of the fabric.

 _Ohhh_.

Hannibal pushes Will into the cove of exposed hair. Breath heats and tempts at Hannibal’s groin, and he _can’t_. Not yet. Not so soon.

He pulls Will off him with a jerk of his wrist, and savours the indignant _ow_ from Will’s wet mouth.

“I’d ask you,” Hannibal says, with a little too much breath, “to remove them fully.”

“But?” Will asks, and his mouth is red.

“I fear it would provide a misleading impression of my intentions. This won’t be as easy as you may want it to be.”

Will looks crushed before he can look angry. Hannibal relinquishes his grip on Will’s wrist and is pleased to see the skin looking red and stretched in his wake.

Hannibal stands, shuffling the trousers from his hips and stepping out of them with what he hopes is some elegance. He kicks them a little closer to Will’s knees, peels his shirt off and drops it next to Will.

“I think a swim is called for,” Hannibal says, ignoring the tentative swelling of his groin.

Will makes a move to stand and Hannibal stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s a shame that you will need to spend this time cleaning the filth from my trousers. I think you might have enjoyed it.”

Hannibal knows he’s being crude. He knows these patterns of behaviour from things he’s only read, but he’s always been a swift learner and there has never been a more suited subject than his Will.

“ _Really_?”

The way Will says it, it doesn’t belong to the patois in Hannibal’s head in this moment.

Hannibal raises his hands to Will’s hair, climbs his fingers through the tendrils and tugs until Will’s neck is arching.

“This is what you were asking for, is it not?”

Hannibal is addressing Will’s trousers as he asks.

Will’s tongue creeps out to lick at his lips before he can answer.

“ _Yes_.”

It’s a resentful sound.

“Or is it that you don’t wish to be inconvenienced, Will? That you want only to see what I will do for you, and offer nothing in return?”

This is shakier ground. Hannibal has long been hinting that their safety has only been guaranteed because of his more violent proclivities, and his attempts to spur Will into action have been the instigators of their most recent troubles.

Will recognises both edges of the comment, and spares himself a discussion on hypocrisy by agreeing that _yes_ , this is what he wants.

“Good,” Hannibal answers with some cheer. “Then you’ll fetch water, detergent and a brush, and you’ll clean them where I can see you.”

Will nods, and this time Hannibal allows him his silence. Hannibal is still faintly regretting his decision not to request that Will lick the garment clean for fear that Will may refuse him, and he isn’t certain that he’d lack sympathy if that were to happen.

“I can trust you to be careful with the fabric, and to keep your hands committed only to their task.”

At this, Hannibal walks to the edge of the pool and lowers himself into the cool water. Will’s frustration is a hot thing at his back, and he needs to be able to temper its effect on him if he is to have any success at steering this day to his own ends.

 

 

Hannibal keeps this up long into the afternoon, and beyond it.

Will has cleaned his trousers, and at the point where the mundanity of the task had threatened to kill his arousal in a flurry of soap suds and raw fingertips, Hannibal had praised his fine work, twined a hand beneath Will’s sweat-damp shirt and had tugged minutely at his nipples. There had been no purpose to the gesture, no segue into something meaningful, but the gasp it elicited made it worthwhile. Pain, even softly given, was quite the reward.

Then, he’d asked Will to chop olives and asparagus into fine cubes, and as the frustration at getting the slippery olives to remain still and compliant coaxed swearing to Will’s lips, Hannibal had bitten them closed, for a second. Then, he’d stood behind Will and guided his hands until the green vegetables were sliced into an orderly portion, and he’d pressed himself close, invasively close, gripped the knife and told Will that he’d be tempted to ask him to test the technique on his own skin if he found him swearing at it again.

Calmness, Hannibal had told him, was his greatest asset in all things.

And Hannibal had watched Will gather his composure, and set him to cleaning the bathroom, only suggesting that he allow himself to piss once he’d fully wilted from the exasperation of scrubbing and chemicals and no contact whatsoever. He’d then waited some moments, surveying the work done by Will on scuffed knees with raw hands, and had suggested that Will test the cleanliness with his tongue. Will had said nothing to that; only shook his head and offered a look so woebegone that Hannibal had to fight an impulse to pick him from the ground and pummel it into something more fully wretched there and then. He hadn’t; he’d simply tugged Will upright by his hair and whispered with hot breath in his ear that their shoes needed polishing.

By the time evening turned the sky into a melee of oranges and violets, Will’s face was close to a perpetual flush, and his knuckles were clenched near constantly.

So, at seven o’clock, Hannibal decides that perhaps, Will has been toyed with sufficiently. There is fresh linen on the bed they now share, and also on the bed that Will only seldom retreats to. Hannibal has eaten a fine salad, prepared by Will but not shared with him. Will has reluctantly accepted the rationale of remaining hungry; the delicate morsels would only have aggravated the hole in his gums. Will has borne each task with waning grace, pulled only back to obedience by the scant warnings made by Hannibal that he may, at some point, receive some reprieve. That he has not reached for himself is commendable, and Hannibal considers offering this as praise, but decides against it. He does not wish to be premature. Now, Hannibal thinks, Will is surely ready to accept some of the retribution he is so sorely owed.

“Will, you look to be in need of a drink.”

Will looks, by now, as though he might collapse.

“And then some,” answers Will, and that familiar snipe is creeping back into his voice.

“Something special, I think,” Hannibal says. He is able to languish in the comforts of a body that has been gently exercised, rested, fed, and has not been thrown into concrete within the last twenty four hours. Will has not.

“The wine cellar,” Hannibal instructs, spoken with the false intonation of a suggestion. “If you wait for me there, I’ll help you select something.”

Will takes two heavy breaths before he offers verbal acknowledgment. There’s a tremble in his legs as he navigates his way down the near vertical steps to the wooden cellar, a whiteness to his knuckles as he clenches them, and yet it’s ever tempered by the bloody-minded resilience Hannibal associates with Will, and only Will.

The outhouse is only a few hasty steps from the back door and the entrance to the cellar, and within moments Hannibal is behind its doors, gathering a modest selection of tools from the gardening implements available to him. It’s inelegant, perhaps, and certainly not as hygienic as he would like. But, the situation is growing in urgency for him, and must surely be dire for Will. He has made a promise to him, after all. He pulls twine, secateurs and tape from the shelves of the storeroom, and lifts a length of bamboo cane out of its holder. Two lengths, he decides; it’s not a terribly sturdy material, under duress.

Hannibal descends the steps to the cellar with awkward balance, the bamboo clacking against the metal. Will is leaning heavily on the support pillar, eyes closed and heel of his hand warningly close to his tensed groin.

“Please, tell me the floor in here doesn’t need cleaning too.”

Hannibal smiles, understanding that the only reason Will hasn’t sat in either of the chairs before him is out of fear that he’d be asked to stand again.

“No. But it certainly will when we’re done.”

Will opens his eyes at this, turning to face Hannibal and sheepishly lets his hand fall limp to his side. His eyes round as they catch sight of the objects in Hannibal’s hand, and he watches, mute, as Hannibal lays each one on the small table in front of him.

“I did mention that you had earned something of a punishment, did I not?”

“Yes.” Will’s lips are dry, and his pupils are eclipsing the thin strands of his irises. There’s still something discordant in his expression; a dismissal, or a deflection.

“You do not like it to be referred to as such, do you?”

“It sounds…familial,” Will says, cautious. “Like this is a routine with boundaries set by things external to us. Traditions. Lessons.”

He flushes deeper as he speaks, as though some untapped discomfort has been momentarily set free, and Will speeds his words to clip its wings.

“It’s fine,” he continues, “but I’m not sure that the concept belongs to us.”

Hannibal feels at once chastised for his gaucheness of terminology, and yet somehow elated, quite desperately, at the way Will has spoken such easy intimacy with his fervent use of _us_.

“Then should we talk of repercussions and reconciliations instead?”

“What are you planning to reconcile, Hannibal?”

Even in this underground space, the heat between them has a pulse. It’s thick, and quickening, and there is too little touch between them.

“If I discuss it so soon into proceedings, I fear it will rather ruin the effect.”

Will’s smile betrays a small victory, and Hannibal finds himself wanting to smack it from his face.

“So, Will, whatever is to happen here, do you wish it to be torment that you inflict upon yourself?”

The victory smile dissipates and Will’s skin glistens in the low light. His sweat taints the air, and it’s beautiful.

“ _Torment_ is your area, Hannibal.”

“Then you wish to be made to bend to it?”

Hannibal begins picking at the buttons of Will’s shirt, pulling the fabric from where it sticks at his skin.

“Asking me to do anything is _making_ me do it,” Will answers, chest rising rapidly as his shirt is opened and slipped from his shoulders. “It’s hormonal blackmail.”

Hannibal smiles at the phrase. He disagrees, but Will’s stubbornness is a delightful thing.

“But you’d prefer it,” Hannibal says, unbuttoning Will’s trousers and skittering his fingers across his reddened hips, “if I were to remove that choice completely?”

He expects a comeback of sorts; a refutation, or a pondering of the nature of free will, framed within an observation of the toxicity of their dynamic. What Hannibal does not expect is the breathy _please_ that leaks from Will’s throat.

His cock thickens at the sound.

“Your hands, Will.”

Will’s eyes are lightning, and he offers his wrists. A length of twine is unravelled from the roll, and Hannibal wraps the coarse string in loops around each wrist in turn, keeping a small width of give in each rotation. He slips his thumb beneath the twine and feels Will’s pulse juddering beneath it. He joins the wrists closer, setting them in a prayer-like poise.

“Too tight?” he asks, knowing that it isn’t.

“No.”

Hannibal thumbs at the cut in Will’s palm and feels the icy tremble as it osmotes through the places their skin meets.

“It will chafe if you pull it,” Hannibal states, and it sounds like concern but it’s meant as a promise.

He’s surveying Will’s form as it thrums with desperation; the way muscles twitch across his frame, the smudges of discolouration from the previous night at the docks, and the shining lines of scars gifted through circumstances of Hannibal’s own making.

He imagines reaching his hand into those healed parts, pulling at the insides and drawing them closer to him. He thinks of the tooth in his pocket, and of all the parts of Will he wants to keep, and claim, and dismantle and rebuild inside himself.

And he reminds himself that Will is already _his_ , almost whole, still. And that Will is _alive_ , and that he wants to keep him this way.

Holding one end of the twine, Hannibal shifts Will’s trousers low enough for them to drop fully.

“Step out of your shoes, then turn and face the pillar.”

Will’s cheeks are scarlet and he seems unable to find words as he obeys.

His wrists are lifted parallel to his eyes; Hannibal is careful not to put too much strain on the shoulder joint which still stiffens with elevation. He loops the string three times round the support pillar, knotting the ends and ensuring that Will is tethered securely, elbows splayed and resting against the concrete pole. Secure, but not close enough that he may gain any friction between his upward curved cock and the cool concrete.

Will’s back flexes, clenches, and stills.

“Move your feet further back.”

Will does as he is asked, until his back stretches out and his neck hinges forward. He’s leaking, already.

Will’s back, Hannibal notes, is comparatively unmarked.

“As you are so insistent on discarding the conventions of these things,” Hannibal says, and his voice feels slow to emerge from his throat at the sight of Will tensed before him, “we shall not be using safewords.”

Will swallows, a wet and thirsty sound.

“And as you wish to perpetuate the notion that you have only ever been doing my bidding, you will receive the full brunt of my whims.”

Will is rigid, and Hannibal imagines this pose rendered in marble, immortalised, displayed and revered. There are no others he would trust to feel the radiance of beauty from such a sculpture, and he imagines it again contained within his own halls of memory, private and sacred.

“Unless you wish to concede that you may wish to request an out?”

Will hesitates, and Hannibal uses the pause to loosen his own shirt. The heat in the cellar is cloying.

And then, Will says the thing that he really, really shouldn’t.

“I trust you.”

Hannibal believes he could come at the words alone, and only shields himself from the full immersion of the impact by focusing fully on the task at hand. He lifts one length of the bamboo from the table.

“Foolish boy,” he says, and he doesn’t mean for it to sound so fond.

The air fills with static as Hannibal raises the thin ridged cane.

“Eyes forward.”

Will blinks once, grits his jaw with a wince, and waits.

Three long seconds pass and the silence grows teeth.

Then, there’s a swish, and sharp crackle of impact as the wood hits the skin of Will’s back, inches below his shoulder blade.

There’s a hiss, and nothing more.

 _Disappointing_.

Hannibal swings again; precise, on the other side.

The same hiss, only now with a hum not quite close enough to be a groan.

 _Promising_.

The third swish lands on the outer edges of Will’s thigh, and this time there’s a hint of a keening noise, and it’s still something suppressed.

The fourth lays over it, and already the skin is rising in vivid pink ripples.

“Will?”

Will has his bottom lip between his teeth and his eyes are watering, but he responds only with a nod.

The fifth hits clean across his buttocks, the slap of it hard and vicious. Red spots the surface of the skin, and Hannibal resolves to get more suitable tools for future renditions. It seems too quick to raise damage, this way. This, he thinks, is a thing he would very much like to prolong.

Will’s erection disagrees, still straining against air.

The sixth returns to his thighs, and this time, Will yelps.

“Sorry,” he says in a whisper, though it seems more directed at himself than at Hannibal.

He has bitten a hole in his lip.

Hannibal leans forward, teases the bead of blood with his fingers, and tastes it.

 _Excellent_.

Hannibal kneads at the skin, smoothing fingers over the fresh ridges as they bloom in his wake.

At the ninth swat, aimed at Will’s back, the bamboo splits. It’s a splinter; not fully severed, yet it renders the end of the cane loose.

Will’s breathing is a gravel-tinged thing by the tenth.

The eleventh is swung expertly across the lower portions of Will’s back, missing organs but rendering the skin livid. Will’s eyes are leaking, now, and his front teeth are painted red.

By the fourteenth, sharp against Will’s buttocks, the cane severs.

“ _Fuck_.”

The fifteenth is a retaliatory swing; a reaction to the language. The jagged edge of the bamboo has scored a lightning strike into Will’s behind, and now he’s gasping, grappling for breath.

“ _Shh_. Will.”

Hannibal’s hands are on Will now, soothing, massaging, then groping at the damaged flesh. The thin beads of red from the fifteenth blow are smeared into the skin and Hannibal sinks momentarily to his knees to lick the taste and colour of it clean.

“You asked me to hurt you,” Hannibal says, and he sounds more defensive than he intends to. “Have I hurt you enough, Will?”

There’s no comeback about the concepts of ‘enough’ being inadequate for them. There’s only a mucous-wet gasp, and Hannibal thinks he hears the word _yes_ leak out with it.

Hannibal stands, moves so that his face is level with Will’s. His lack of handkerchief is inconvenient in this moment, and he places his hand on Will’s damp jaw, turning his face to him.

“Breathe, Will. I don’t want you to bite through your tongue.”

Will lets out a whimper, and Hannibal wonders that perhaps this really is sufficient. But then, Will is nothing if not resilient. He strokes again at the tensed arms, and offers a pointless instruction to Will to wait. That he will just be a moment, as he climbs the stairs from the cellar.

He returns only minutes later, cloth in hand, the broken end of the bamboo gathered from the floor.

“Will?”

Will is still trembling, but it’s subdued. His eyes are red and his skin is a light cross-hatch of abrasions, and Hannibal finds the decoration lacking, still. He mops at Will’s face, carefully and with fondness. Will nods, a grimace. He understands that this is not over.

Hannibal slinks from view as he threads twine through the hollow of the broken end of bamboo. It’s not strong enough for its purpose, but it should provide an interim measure. He ties more string to the loops, creating a harness of sorts, and presents the length of it to Will.

“Bite,” he says, one hand stroking at Will’s hair. The jagged end is just far enough from the centre of the makeshift gag not to cause damage.

Will does as he is told, wrapping his teeth around the pliant wood. The string is looped behind his head, tied off in place and more or less secure.

“If you are not in need of your voice, it seems prudent to protect your mouth from unnecessary risk, wouldn’t you say?”

On another person, this might look dehumanising. As it is, Will looks near feral, bit in mouth and skin flushed with sweat. But there’s a grace to his suffering; something accepting, welcoming, even. Hannibal fights the temptation to curtail the elaborate desecration of Will’s body in favour of savouring it more fully, but he is a creature of many indulgences, and he desires to see him marred more intricately.

“Good,” he says, and Will only lets his head fall back down between his shoulder blades in answer.

Hannibal picks up the second bamboo cane, wields it carefully, then swats it across Will’s shoulders with ecstatic kinesis.

God, he’s missed the power of this.

At the nineteenth stroke, Will’s wrists have turned raw from struggling. By the twenty-second, his breath is coming out in growls.

At the twenty-third, his knees are barely supporting him, and no amount of stroking between the blows is infusing him with the energy to support himself.

By the twenty-fifth, there are rivulets of red from where the impact has broached the flesh of Will’s back.

The twenty-sixth is mis-placed; a finger-width too low, and Will lurches with the nausea of one who has had their kidney pummelled.

Hannibal offers no apology, and Will demands none.

The twenty-seventh re-paints Will’s buttocks; safer, if Hannibal’s aim is being offset by his desire to see Will broken around his hand.

Will is shaking, and saline splashes on the ground beneath his head. He’s no longer holding himself upright, and Hannibal scoops an arm around Will’s middle to support him; to rebalance him on his feet until Will steels himself once more.

Hannibal kisses at Will’s back with a softness that doesn’t match his urges. He whispers to Will how precious he looks, how decadent the spill of his skin is. Will trembles, lets Hannibal wipe at his face, and still his cock twitches.

There’s a pull of silence before the twenty-eighth. A lull, and a tensing of limbs. When it hits Will’s thighs, there’s a sound of splintering obscured by a shout.

Hannibal strokes at the cane before he strokes Will, seeking the source of the damage. The length appears to be intact, and it’s only the heightened volume of Will’s breath that alerts Hannibal to the source of the break. He moves to the pillar, to face Will, where the makeshift gag has been cleaved by Will’s teeth and hangs jagged from the string, torn and brittle bamboo worrying the corners of Will’s mouth.

“A shame,” Hannibal says, and he looks to Will’s expression for apology, for fight, but the eyes are some constellation too distant for Hannibal to communicate with. Wherever Will is, it is not fully with him in this moment.

Hannibal pulls the saliva-wet wood and string from Will’s mouth, stroking at the tension locked into his jaw.

“Will, come back to me.”

Will lets out a groan, spitting drool onto the floor beneath him. The shake in his muscles seems permanent, now. Hannibal mouths loose kisses over Will’s shoulders, draping his tongue across the rises and splits of skin and he’s holding Will up again, pressing his skin close to him, pulling Will’s hips back into his. The cloth separating him from Will is an inconvenient barrier, though Hannibal has not yet finished. Twenty-eight is a number of no import; he could yet make it an even thirty.

Still holding Will by his middle, skimming his fingers to the coils of sweat-damp hair and the shift and rise of Will’s erection, Hannibal reaches behind him for the roll of tape.

On such damp skin, he doubts it will have much effect, but he has grown fond of the idea of suppressing Will’s sounds. Whilst he remains inarticulate, it seems almost tidy. Necessary, even.

He lets go of Will for long enough to tear a short strip of the broad tape, reaching towards Will’s downturned face with a loop of his arms.

“ _No_.”

Will backs away from the new semblance of a gag, voice high and unsteady.

Hannibal attempts to push the adhesive closer towards Will’s mouth, and he’s met with a jerk of the head and a frantic plea to please, _don’t_.

This is first thing Will has denied Hannibal since this began, and Hannibal finds himself hesitating. He _wants_ …he wants Will in place in all the ways he imagines it. And yet, he does not want Will in that place without willingness. It must be, above all things, Will’s choice to accept it.

Will’s choice right now is clear in his gasping breaths and panic, and Hannibal scrunches the tape in his hands, allowing it to drop to the floor.

“Very well,” Hannibal says, instead of “sorry.”

Will’s breathing slows, a little, and his erection is still a desperate, straining thing.

“Can you endure more from me, I wonder?”

“Other people,” Will says, voice thick and somewhat detached. “They seek to cosset me. Protect me from the world.”

Hannibal places a hand across Will’s back, feels the heat beneath his fingertips, and waits for these curious words from Will to find their way to some meaning.

“They’ll use me as tool for righteousness,” Will says, his teeth gritting between syllables, “and then try to gentle me, soften me after. As though it could fix something.”

He sounds near delirious, and Hannibal strokes at his flaming skin, still waiting for lucidity from Will which he is no longer sure will be forthcoming.

“I don’t _have_ those soft edges they tried to find in me, Hannibal.”

Hannibal thinks this is an admission, or perhaps a justification, but the lack of coherence is proving faintly infuriating. He considers reapplying the gag until Will can pull some structure to his verbal meanderings. He doesn’t. Some cruelties are necessary, but perhaps this one wouldn’t be. Hannibal waits, still, patient. His hand traces a path across Will’s buttocks, between his thighs, and pulls a hiss from Will.

“ _You_ know where the hard edges are.”

Hannibal thinks he may understand; that Will finally sees the ineptitude of others to fully confront each jagged facet of Will, and of the heavy, violent angles of the world he is now immersed in. The world he _belongs_ in.

“I don’t…”

Will pauses, lets breath return to his strained lungs, and twists to try and look at Hannibal. His hair is a sodden mop on his scalp, and his vision is obscured by curls and by sweat.

“I’m with you,” Will says, and he’s heaving inside his skin. “Because you’re not anything soft.”

Hannibal feels momentarily stunned. There’s something else Will appears to want to say, but his breath has sunk back to gasps and Hannibal supposes this has something to do with the way his own fingers are now prying at the tense muscles of Will’s opening.

“Quite,” Hannibal agrees. He emphasises the point, the lack of softness, by withdrawing his hand and unpeeling his trousers, pressing himself against Will.

Will lets out a single syllable of laughter, caught in his throat as Hannibal claws his fingers across the raised welts of his backside.

Hannibal has no further narration to offer Will. He’s waited – they’ve waited – for long enough to experience this, and the inevitability of it makes it no less enticing.

It is with only mild reluctance that Hannibal pushes the length of bamboo away. He has failed, he realises, to bring any form of comfortable lubrication with him, and he daren’t leave Will – or himself – without the press of their skin for long enough to remedy his error.

He spits into his hands, feels Will’s muscles vibrate at the sound. He wraps the slickness around his own cock, slowly thumbing at the tip of it. Will shifts on his feet, still unsteady in his stance. His wrists, Hannibal observes, are now chafed to dampness from his struggles.

Hannibal spits again, and Will is trying to back towards him, eager, hurting, and smelling purely desperate.

One folded, damp knuckle presses in, barely, and Will’s breath goes still.

There are ways in which Hannibal delights in hurting Will, but this one, he thinks, is a thing to be more careful with. He nudges the tip of his cock against Will, the precum gathering there providing some slide to the pressure.

There’s texture to Will’s breath now, and it carries a soft mantra, _please, please, please_ , and Hannibal will be destroyed again by Will if he dares to plea so openly to him.

He uses his claws to stem the noise; scratches hard across the cerise lines of Will’s back until the _please_ becomes a grinding hiss.

Of all the ways he wants to undo Will, he had not imagined the extent of ecstasy of such a seemingly obvious method.

He pushes the knuckle back into Will, past the reluctance and the instinctive contraction of muscles. He’d loosen him with his tongue if he had either patience or stamina, but fears that he is past the point of attempting either.

Will isn’t loose, nor ready.

Will is coiled, keening, pulsing and _hurting_ , and all because of Hannibal.

Hannibal is ready. Hannibal is intoxicated, throbbing through every nerve known to him, and he spits once more, fidgeting aggressively with damp fingers until the opening flinches wide enough to accommodate him.

He pushes, and it’s slippery, just.

Will’s breath has gone silent.

His tip burrows inside, slow. Much slower than he would like.

Will heats around him, and he’s simultaneously an invitation and violent rejection in the silent spasms of his muscles.

Hannibal holds them both in place, allows the long moment of adjustment.

Then, he pulls himself backwards, pulling Will with him until Will’s balance is held between his toes and his wrists.

He’s barely in. He shifts, feels friction which doesn’t belong against skin so vulnerable.

He shifts his hands against Will’s stomach, fingers splayed between scar and hipbones, and he pulls.

Will closes, presses around him, and as Hannibal shunts in, deeper, Will _screams_.

They freeze, momentarily. Hannibal stretches his fingers into the coils of hair, touches the base of Will’s cock and feels the flesh almost spring at his touch.

He pulls back, eases himself halfway out in hot, trapped movements.

“Will?”

“ _Fuck_.”

It’s all the assent Hannibal needs. He shunts himself back in, fingers gripped solid around Will’s hips, and then he grinds; pushes until his balls are squeezed against Will’s backside.

There’s no intelligible sound from Will, and Hannibal finds himself struck similarly mute by the sensation of tightness, of immersion, of everything Will has become for him.

Hannibal shifts; little more than an adjustment, and the pressure bolts at him just so. Another shift, this one punctuated by a moan, high and pained, and Hannibal is spilling, spitting pressure out of him and his stomach feels loose, now, and he’s feeling like he’s painted Will from the inside and it feels unparalleled in wonder and yet so utterly decadent as the feeling of wetness squirms around him.

Will is breathing his name, and Hannibal remains where he is, feeling the loss of his own friction.

It is only fair, after such a gift, to be kind in return.

Hannibal reaches his right hand toward Will’s cock; the angle prohibiting him any sight of it, but the warmth of it is sticky against his fingers when they reach it.

“Would you scream for me, Will?”

There isn’t time for a verbal answer. The pulse beneath Hannibal’s fingers is a furious hum, and Will arches on his feet as he shoots like a bursting balloon, spurting liquid well beyond the grasp of Hannibal’s hand. The noise he makes is less a scream and more like a call to battle, and as Hannibal solidifies his grasp, chugs his hand up and down Will’s shaft to shake the aftermath from him, the sound crumbles into something wretched, hollow.

The quietness cloaks them both as Hannibal pulls himself from Will with ease, folding his arms across Will’s chest in a hug. He’s pressed into the still-rising welts on Will’s skin, and Will says nothing in protest; just accepts the grip of warm arms around him, stilling him from the tremors of his bloodstream.

Hannibal could stay like this for some time; destroyer and protector in one gesture, with Will’s heartbeat thudding against him.

Will, however, can probably not. He remains mute but for the sniffled breaths of slow returning feeling. His hands are red inside their twine trappings, with a purpling of the skin that Hannibal knows to be damaging.

Hannibal fumbles for the secateurs, letting go of Will for long enough to pinch the sharp edges of the tools between skin and string. He cuts the loops securing it to the pillar first, using his body as a mast for Will to fall against. Then, he unpicks the tethers on Will’s wrists, rubbing at the skin as the twine falls to the floor.

Will is painted in reds and water and livid pink bruises, and for all Hannibal is able to remove all notions of sympathy from his circumstance, he has no urgent need to see Will suffer further.

“We should rest,” Hannibal says, his voice no more abrasive than a whisper. “And this is a poor place to do it.”

Will nods, reaches his freed arms around Hannibal’s and draws him into a loose and breathy kiss. It feels like gratitude, the way his mouth falls across Hannibal’s lips, and Hannibal answers it with reluctant brevity.

He guides Will to the metal steps, arranging his hands on the rails and attempting to guide Will up the narrow stairway.

Will tries, once, to raise his leg to the first step, and some unseen spasm shocks him back into stillness. He tries again, leaning more fully on the rails, and again his body fails him. There’s no grip to his hands, and his legs move as though rubberised.

“I…”

Hannibal turns Will to him, smothers the words with arms against Will’s torn back. He’s not seen Will defeated, not in this way, and the surge of pride that swells in Hannibal is possibly misplaced. Will, in this moment, is no longer capable of walking, not up steps, and it required no act of amputation or other permanence.

Hannibal’s chest grows warmer as he pulls Will closer into his fold. The steps are too narrow for him to carry Will up them with any gentleness, and he has no desire to spend the rest of the night in the cellar. A compromise, then.

“You don’t have to walk, Will, because you don’t have to go anywhere.”

Will nods, and some of the flush is only now sinking from his skin.

“Stay, here,” Hannibal says, guiding Will back to the open floor, safely away from the spots of dampness. He eases Will down to his knees.

“Lie on your front, for the time being,” Hannibal instructs, and he means it to sound warm, but it’s a brittle sounding command. “I’ll bring you blankets, and water. Rest, Will.”

Will moves himself with some difficulty until he’s lying on his side against the stone, one arm holding his chest elevated from the floor. He has the expression of one who has too many sparks of pain reverberating through him to be able to discern the source of any of them.

“You’ll stay with me?” Will asks, and it’s the first request he’s made in support of his own wellbeing. Hannibal finds it charming, and, he supposes, encouraging.

“I'll be back, Will.”

Hannibal smiles at Will in a way which he hopes conveys the utter admiration he holds for him, and retreats up the stairs in search of blankets.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is being posted late! And, oh dear, Hannibal. I'm sure it's fine and he won't fuck this up or anything. 
> 
> There would be more notes here but I am stealth-updating this fic from the work computer again...


	6. Gentle plague

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal, you _dick._

 

Will barely responds to the pool of cotton that lands in front of him. He blinks, once. Then, he grimaces, and it’s slight, as though the effort to react to his pain is too great a thing to manage. His eyes are puffed, pink and his nostrils flinch and flare in the smallest of increments as he tries to shift position.

Hannibal knows this expression and its range of inflections, though not from Will. It’s resignation, and it’s the aftermath of agony which transcends the nerves of human reactions. He’s seen it on the faces of people who’ve passed the point of pleas for survival, awaiting the final acts of execution. It’s an expression which had always filled him with a soft disappointment; confirmation that the life he was snuffing out was indeed unremarkable. And yet, on Will, it looks beautiful.

The distinction, thinks Hannibal, may have something to do with the absence of imminent death.

And then, he’s struck by a reaction which is of far more concern to him.

It’s an impulse to soothe, and to protect.

It goes far beyond any former need to possess, to cherish, or adore.

The urge reaches deep into him, wraps its wet fingers around the steel of his heart and wrenches at it.

“Water?” asks Will, and his voice, it’s so soft, yet devoid of pleading.

The urge has him in his grip now, crushing out the habitual temptation to deny Will the comforts he seeks. He tries to turn his back on this softness which threatens to turn his iron to blood. He shuts his eyes, sees himself pick up the cane and imagines a fresh assault against the stinging, raised skin of Will’s back. Imagines the skin shredded until the man inside it is little more than an apology, bathed in blood and no longer any threat to his own control.

Hannibal shudders.

Perhaps not.

Will accepts the water when it comes, spills it down his chin and makes no move to dry it.

Hannibal finds that he doesn’t even resent the lack of decorum.

He’s made concessions to his newfound compassion, and lots of them. If he stays with Will now, tonight, and tries to ease some of the wound from those damp, pink, eyes, Hannibal imagines that it would foster in him some irrevocable change. _He_ _mustn’t_. He is a mountain of strength, of will and ire and immovable force, and he has been chipped at too deeply already. Knowing that Will wanted this, that he demanded it, holds no sway over his newfound desire to cosset. To heal. To _fix_. It’s a desire that should not belong in Hannibal’s skin and he wishes it out, to allow himself the familiarity of carnage and adoration back in its place.

His callousness feels insincere when he stands to leave.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” says Will.

Hannibal doesn’t say, _you’ve been left in worse states than this_.

Hannibal only says, “We’ll apply balm to that in the morning.” And then, “Rest, Will.”

He drapes one of the thinner sheets of cotton over Will’s back, places the water bottle within reach, gifts a gentle kiss to Will’s sweat-drenched hair, and then leaves, taking the ruins of his conscience with him.

“You’re the worst thing to happen to me,” Will says. What he lacks in movement and volume, he compensates for in the way that his reproachful eyes scorch the air following Hannibal’s footsteps.

It is only a night, Hannibal reasons as he shuts the door to the cellar. And Will has endured far, far worse.

 

 *

 

Sleep, for Hannibal, is a swift and heavy thing, aided by soft bedding and only a hint of exhaustion to speed the close of heavy eyelids. And tonight, somewhat unwelcomely, sleep gifts Hannibal with dreams.

He navigates the landscapes of his sleeping consciousness, finding himself outside the home of his childhood, and even through the unreality of it, Hannibal knows that he does not wish to be here. A figure blooms through the undergrowth, too tall to be Mischa, and for this, Hannibal is grateful. He has gone to many lengths to avoid meeting her here. The figure is bathed in blackness, a creature of tendrils and coils. Hannibal hopes, faintly, that it may yet be Chiyoh; carrying some graceful admonishment, or steel-tipped guidance.

And then the figure shows its teeth, one of them missing, and Hannibal knows that his sleeping mind will provide him with no fortress in which he can hide from this new plague.

This incarnation of Will moving through the shadows has none of the vulnerability of its living counterpart, and Hannibal supposes that this is fitting; there should exist some version of Will that has not yet been ruined.

Hannibal tries to speak to it; to test whether his voice could still yield some influence. His voice is clogged, and then, his voice becomes mud. His Will is atop him, tendrils reaching from his skin towards him, and Hannibal understands that in this moment, he is the ground on which Will stands. His form is earth and clay, and Will is reaching through him, moulding and sculpting and embedding himself into the malleable dirt. Hannibal is trying to sever the threads of roots, trying to twist each of them off to remain clear of Will’s presence, and it’s to no avail. Each attempt to push away results in the roots burrowing deeper until he’s existing as one with this incarnation of Will.

Hannibal wakes with a dry throat and a gloss of sweat on his skin.

Subtlety, he thinks, is not the most prominent characteristic of his sleeping mind’s concoctions.

It is still dark beyond the curtains of his room, and though he feels some troublesome need to resolve the fitfulness of his lonely sleep with company, the covers of his bed are still moulded to his form. This is favourable, still, to the stone floor and wooden walls of the cellar and its tang of blood and spit.

And so, Hannibal permits himself sleep once again, and hopes that his mind will be quieter until daylight.

 

 *

 

When Hannibal next wakes, it is to the sound of running water and the scent of wine, sage, piss and fresh blood.

_Oh_.

He’s moving before his eyes have fully opened.

_Will_.

He pushes on the handle to the shower room, not considering that Will should be owed any debt of privacy when his own concern and curiosity transcends it. Somewhat upsettingly, it’s locked. Hannibal isn’t sure that the door has ever been locked since they first adopted this house as their own, and this alone is bothersome.

He knocks, twice.

“Will?”

The water from the showerhead roars and splashes, and Hannibal can hear the smatting of wet feet against the tiled floors, and no accompanying answer.

He attempts courtesy.

“Will, may I come in?”

The movement of skin seems to pause, though the sound of water does not.

At the continued lack of answer, Hannibal sees no option but to remain where he is, wiping the sleep from his eyes and deciding how best to appease the apparent unpleasant mood that Will is demonstrating by his silence.

Then, he finds himself questioning whether his desire to see Will placated is solely for his own benefit, or whether he remains plagued by these notions of consoling Will from the damage he has wrought.

He is not satisfied by the grudging awareness that his motivations have not been entirely selfish.

“I know you’re still there,” Will calls over the water, and his voice sounds…lower. Slower, even. _Drunk_. Possibly an inevitability of leaving him emotionally wracked and confined to a space filled only with an abundance of alcohol. “I don’t owe you this, Hannibal.”

Hannibal purses his mouth, and accepts that Will is quite possibly right.

“Is there anything you need?” Hannibal asks instead, and isn’t sure if he imagines the sound of Will sucking laughter in through his teeth at his magnanimous offer.

“There was, but it’s passed.”

A chill glides through Hannibal’s gut and he hastily concocts justifications for his decision to leave Will alone the previous night. They sit like insubstantial mockeries of reason, though one seems fit to articulate.

“You sought hard edges from me, Will. Perhaps you overreached yourself?”

There’s a sound of wet knuckles impacting tiles.

“Leave, please.”

There’s a tone of finality to Will’s request, enough that Hannibal does as asked.

Hannibal bites down the frustration and impotence of knowledge that Will is attempting to further damage himself by punching the walls of the bathroom. He has the unavoidable impression that, had he governed his own actions with a little more care, he could have spared himself this unpleasantness. Distraction, he thinks, is the key. And if his memories of last night serve him correctly, the cellar, he imagines, will require some cleaning.

 

 *

 

It isn’t until late morning that Will allows himself to be caught in Hannibal’s presence. He’s stretched on a lounger next to the pool, basking in the first full sunlight that’s fallen on his skin since they arrived in Colombia. The blue of his shorts clashes against the pinks and yellows of his chest, and the ochre of the liquid in his glass compliments the dark shadows beneath his eyes. He’s reading from Hannibal’s tablet, tilting it to divert the sun’s glare.

“Morning.”

It comes out as a slur.

There’s an indignant kind of anger at Will’s dismissal of sobriety, but it’s one that Hannibal does not yet feel entitled to articulate. He places a steaming breakfast bowl at Will’s side and retreats back into the shade of the sun umbrella. He’s spent no small portion of this morning clearing broken glass from the cellar and soaking bloodstains out of cotton, and his arms are still aching from the previous night. He wants Will to at least enjoy some of his breakfast; a bed of pureed apples doused in brandy, topped with creamed oats, nutmeg, cinnamon and clove. He decides not to push it.

“We’re still dead,” Will tells him, fingers clumsily skimming across the surface of the tablet. “Jack says not to be complacent. But they’re not listening to Jack.”

Hannibal knows this.

“I like being dead,” Will continues, his voice infused with genuine cheer. “No judgement. People are a lot kinder about you when you’re not around to correct them with the truth. No one to worry about you when you’re dead.”

“I’m worried about you, Will.”

Will rests the tablet in his lap, and the fresh red scuff marks of his knuckles seem to glow in the sunlight. They’re brighter than the sores on his wrists, fresher and self-inflicted, and Hannibal is already cataloguing the ingredients he’ll need to make a balm to aid their recovery.

“No,” Will answers. “You’re not.”

At this, Hannibal stops thinking of balms and begins imagining finer string to wrap around those wrists instead. He thinks of pulling at them tighter until the skin tears completely and muscle shows through. It’s a short dalliance of his imagination, but the reassurance it brings; that he can still feel the swell of hunger for Will’s discomfort; it’s a precious thing.

“I’m concerned –” Hannibal begins.

“You’re feeling distance from me. It’s not the same thing.”

“If you continue this irksome behaviour I may start to savour that distance,” Hannibal replies before his better judgement can stop him. “I apologise, Will,” he adds, though he’s not entirely clear on what for.

Will nods, stretching to pick the bowl from the floor, a curse muttered under his breath at the movement.

“Porridge,” he comments after the first mouthful.

Hannibal anticipates disdain, but hears praise instead.

“It’s good.” And then, “Thanks.”

The silence that follows is almost calm; Will eats, and refuses to give further voice to his physical discomfort. Hannibal savours the panorama of Cartagena’s lazy bustle beyond the boundaries of their villa, and attempts to calculate how soon Will’s skin might heal from its most recent abrasions. This time, his motivations for willing recovery are governed by new curiosity as to how he could create new ones, and he’s feeling infinitely more secure in himself as his thoughts rail into new scenarios of sweat and blood. He reaches a palm beneath the table, behind Will’s line of sight, at the precise moment that Will decides to end their quiet truce.

“We’re not completely dead though, are we?”

The slur is still present, aided by the reducing volume of liquid in Will’s glass.

“I mean, Verger-Bloom industries are funding their very own detective agency,” Will continues with a humourless laugh into his drink.

This, Hannibal did not know.

“Guess Alana got the hint about not underestimating us after all. Well done, Alana.”

Will doesn’t sound sad as he says it, just detached, somehow. As though caught in an orbit very far from any of the floating rocks of his former life, and not ready to accept that their paths may once again fly into each other.

Hannibal’s posture shifts. “How did you find this out, Will?”

“Or maybe it was more Margot’s doing,” Will offers as conjecture. “Spent her life knowing someone was out to get her, saves herself from him –”

“Will.”

“–And now she has a chance to save her wife from the same…the same sense of hunted dread. Can hardly blame her. Can you?”

Hannibal moves until he is standing behind Will, places his hands on his shoulders and squeezes in a way he intends to be reassuring.

“Tell me how you know this, Will.”

Will shrugs, and Hannibal doesn’t move his hands. “I was a cop,” he says, as though this explained everything.

Hannibal glides his hands further forward, rests them closer to the meat of Will’s neck and feels the tension in Will’s swallow. A gentle, almost amicable threat.

“The internet’s useful like that,” Will says unhelpfully, and Hannibal fights the feeling that this is Will gaining the upper hand again. “It’s how I knew where to look the other night. They’ve already got links to Colombia, among others. Thought the ones who’d seen us might have been on the payroll.”

_Impressive_. And worrying, perhaps.

“And were they?” asks Hannibal. A threat this close to their home should have warranted faster action, and he’s alarmed that he hadn’t even guessed at the extent of it.

Will pauses before he answers, empties his glass and appears indifferent to the pressure Hannibal is placing on his collarbones.

“No. No, they just thought we were rich and were sizing us up as a target.”

Hannibal relaxes his grasp.

“So, our idyll remains intact.”

Will smiles, lazy and with a haze to his features.

“ _Idyll_. Perhaps. Potentially, if you stop trying to lay waste to it.”

“I did only what you asked of me,” he says. “I warned you this was uncharted…”

Will twists to face him, the line of his mouth bitten and curling. His eyes are still pink, though Hannibal hopes that this is in part from the sunlight. His voice comes out like a scythe.

“You’re supposed to stay, after.”

At this, Will turns back, and leans forward, peeling his back from the lounger and curving it until his head is between his knees.

“How scared were you,” Will asks the ground, “That you had to leave?”

There isn’t an answer Hannibal can offer which would satisfy either of them.

Hannibal surveys the lines across the expanse of skin, hues and stripes of pinks, reds and bruising, aggravated by the contact with the lounger and raw from the morning’s shower.

It’s a crude gathering of brushstrokes against the canvas that is Will, and Hannibal feels pride before he considers remorse.

“I’m admitting who I am,” Will says, flexing the muscles beneath the skin as though preening his injured beauty. “Do the same, Hannibal.”

Hannibal places a hand on Will’s shoulder, softer, this time. The skin is searing in its warmth, still. He strokes, feels each fresh contour beneath his fingertips and the vibrations as Will shakes beneath his touch.

“I’m here because I wanted to be. And if you ever leave me on that fucking floor again,” Will says, voice rising in pitch, “I’ll end you.”

Hannibal stops his hand from pinching at the skin in reaction to Will’s vulgar threat. The shake is still present, and Hannibal moves in front of Will to lift his shoulders.

He’s somewhat taken aback by the sight of tears on Will’s face.

“I warned you that I was not as well versed in these things as you may have hoped,” Hannibal repeats, and there’s that unwelcome defensiveness in his voice again. He’s crouching down to Will’s level, now, folding his arms around Will’s and trying, almost, not to put pressure on his back.

Will nests his head in the crook of Hannibal’s shoulder, dampening the shirt as tears fall from him with some ferocity. Inebriation is oddly fetching on him, Hannibal thinks, though he’d never voice this.

“Being _human_ , Hannibal.”

“I thought you believed us to be a monster?”

Will reciprocates the embrace, then.

“Monsters still lick each other’s wounds after a battle,” Will says.

“Then you’d allow me to apply a balm?”

“You’re not speaking metaphorically,” Will says, his voice crackling with unaddressed pain and a faint intoxicated euphoria.

Hannibal loosens the embrace, feels a tightness to his lungs at this unwelcome need to _soothe_ , and heads towards the house in search of lotions.

 

 *

 

Will accepts the softness of Hannibal’s touch as his strong hands smooth cold cream into the skin of his back, his buttocks and his thighs. He’s lying on his front, propped on his elbows. They maintain silence, for a while, both of them too brittle to trust any conversation to remain kind. Mosquitoes hum around them, and the city plays its comfortable drone, and this is as close to peace as either of them can know, for now. Will sips at his tea from the awkward angle; a lemon balm and Echinacea infusion concocted to promote healing, and gradually mutes the alcohol-tinged temper running through him. Hannibal savours the ways in which Will welcomes him in, the acquiescent way he bends to his touch and the refusal to flinch when his hands land on some still-raw patch of skin.

This alone, they both know, could never be enough.

These moments are the pleasantries, the etiquette to which they both adhere, but languishing in comfort, no matter how hard won, will never sate the hunger of either of them.

Hannibal’s appetite is already growing.

Will, however, is in no state to fill the hole already yawning open. A pity.

“Has last night dissuaded you from wishing to pursue our current avenue?” Hannibal tries, massaging cream into the wrist of Will’s right hand.

“What do you think?”

“I think you don’t wish to answer me directly, as admitting it would concede some victory which you are trying to cling on to, in the hopes that you may spare yourself complete vulnerability. Am I right?”

Will smiles, then, an almost sober slide of muscles that shows teeth. It would look relaxed, the grin, if it didn’t pull at his scar and show the gap where his tooth had been pulled from him. But for Will, it’s an expression as light as the midday sun, and Hannibal allows himself to bask in it.

“I suppose,” Will says, offering his other wrist for Hannibal to massage, “That it’s only fair to allow you to be right about one thing today.”

Hannibal grips at the skin, feels the pulse there steady, and smiles.

“I see.”

“Just…”

Will flounders, and Hannibal imagines the caveat he might be thinking of adding. _Not yet_ , perhaps, or _carefully_. Neither of these are requests either could make of the other without considerable acknowledgement of the hypocrisy within. And so the request remains unfinished.

“Then I should like to do some shopping,” Hannibal says after some time, closing the lid of the cream and standing as Will lays his head against the cool ground.

He looks relaxed, as though in his natural state; painted with lacerations and abrasions, warmed by the sun, and lying at Hannibal’s feet.

“If you come back with a paddle and…and fluffy handcuffs,” says Will, his voice stretched around the syllables, “Then I’m getting on a boat back to America to turn myself in as preference.”

By way of an answer, Hannibal rests his foot across the small of Will’s back, the only place unmarred.

“You’re assuming that I’d let you go.”

Will groans lightly into the ground. “You can’t keep me here all the time.”

It’s spoken as a challenge, and taken as such. For later, perhaps.

“I believe that I probably could,” Hannibal says, removing his foot. “But in this moment, I fear the sun is trying to burn the skin I’ve worked very hard to heal.”

Will says nothing.

“Inside, Will.”

Will is still eyeing Hannibal lazily as he threatens to drag him indoors by his hair, seemingly indifferent to the threat. Hannibal isn’t sure that he enjoys this casually defiant aspect of their domesticity, and the uncertainty forms movement as he leans over Will, threads his hands through his curls, and tugs.

“Jesus, Hannibal.”

Will pushes himself up onto his elbows as Hannibal releases his grip, and fumbles for further purchase as he attempts to draw himself to his feet. He lets Hannibal assist him, faltering only slightly when the support pulls away.

“I’m merely doing what’s best for you,” Hannibal tells him with no small amount of satisfaction.

They head inside, and for a short moment, Hannibal considers making good on his promise to keep Will interned in the house, locking him in one of the bathrooms or tethering him to the headboard of their bed, but he lets the moment pass without action. For now, Will is safely and securely _his_ , as much as he is Will’s. And he needs Will to recover as fully as time will allow, because he knows himself well enough to know that this deficit of cruelty will only stand for so long.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What (tentatively) lovely domestic bliss this is! It’s almost as though they could be happy this way. It sure is lucky that they're good at staying below radar, right? 
> 
> And, apologies for the lateness of the update – this was a much harder chapter for some reason (I blame the lack of justifiable violence) – and much as I would like to promise a swifter follow up to this one, I, uh, can’t. I am very, very slow. But, I will do my best, and thank you so much for the comments, the encouragement, the subscriptions and just for reading this, you lovely, lovely beans.


	7. Tempest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With a brief apology for this update taking so very, very long to write: welcome to 5,000+ words of angst, expressive weather, creative and inappropriate usage of firearms and dare I even say it, fluff. No, really.

 

 

Days pass in a drag as the skin on Will’s back heals. No one comes to hunt them at their villa, and no one interrupts Hannibal’s daytime visits to the city.

It’s calm.

Will adapts to the quiet with growing frustration; there’s a threat looming, he swears. He pores over the news websites, the furrows in his brow deepening and flexing with each refresh of a web page. And Hannibal does not respond; waits until Will has put the tablet down, reviews the browser history, and makes his own assessment. There are indeed risks, substantial ones, even, but none of them urgent.

Will grows restless in other ways, and this, Hannibal thinks, is perhaps cruel; he has not touched Will since he dragged him back into the house on that drunken morning.

He watches Will struggling to apply the lotions meant to heal him, and offers no help, even when bluntly asked for. It’s better, he tells Will, that they not fall into the trap of dependency. He ignores Will’s laughter at that, and pretends not to hear the _little_ _late_ that follows.

He watches Will’s behaviour move from irritation to positively coquettish. He watches at the poolside as Will stretches out fully, extending his arms above his head in the way that he _shouldn’t_ , not with his shoulder the way it is, and Hannibal thinks to chastise him, but instead allows his gaze to fall on Will’s tautened midriff, on the shimmering trail of scarring, the muscles contracting on his abdomen, the hollowed plateau of flesh in sunlight, and Hannibal thinks of his hands inside that skin, burrowed through the layers of dermis, reaching through the warm wet of organs flopping against his fingers. He thinks of reaching up through it all, behind the ribs pressed tight against Will’s skin, and gripping at the heart that beats so temptingly at him, holding each beat inside his grip like the wings of a frantic bird, and holding until it stills, until the wings of it no longer captivate him.

A tempting daydream, but not a practical one.

And so, Hannibal looks away.

And each time Will attempts to initiate a touch with any depth to it, Hannibal extricates himself from it, and feigns indifference.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to savour it. It’s strategic. Hannibal guards his tendency toward affection as though it were something poisonous. He feels it; as an ache in the threads of his being that springs into sharp spasms whenever Will tempts him. He _could_ give it ownership of his impulses. So, so easily. And yet he knows that if he does, it will unravel him. 

If Hannibal is to be the one in control, then Hannibal needs to master himself first. And as the intimacy between them grows vast spaces in which to breathe and to doubt, Will’s easy confidence ebbs, giving way to the guardedness of his old self. Hannibal works to replenish the diminishing stores of wine and spirits as Will diverts his affections toward his drink, instead. He _can_ control each and every reaction to Will, outwardly at least, and so he does.

And in the days when Hannibal visits the city, he buys gifts for Will. Some of them tasteful; antique contraptions with locks and hinges and certificates of authenticity, others more crude, from the sorts of vendors he rarely favours, but who offer the sorts of wares he thinks Will may come to appreciate.

The gifts multiply, and remain hidden from Will.

Hannibal waits, accepts the brunt of Will’s discordant moods, until such time as he believes Will to be healed enough, and for himself to be emotionally strong enough to utilise them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I thought you found firearms impersonal,” Will says, and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, watching Hannibal pull items from a small suitcase as though waiting for a punchline. There’s a hitch to his breath as Hannibal reaches behind the opened lid. He’s aware, now, that every item pulled from this case and placed next to him is something that Hannibal has bought and chosen for _him_ ; he’s been summoned from the pool to bear witness to Hannibal’s offerings. The gun, it seems, has confused him with its incongruity; a long-barrelled shooter with a box of cartridges, currently resting next to an expensive looking bottle of lotion, a handful of weighty padlocks, and a set of four extravagantly sized cuffs. Hannibal pulls a strip of broad white fabric from the case and zips it closed. There’ll be ample time to explore the items still hidden inside it. And keeping Will guessing as to the tools that await him is no small pleasure for Hannibal.

“Indeed,” Hannibal answers, allowing his voice a slowness which he hopes conveys control.

In this setting, Will seems reluctant to speak unless spoken to.

Truthfully, Hannibal is grateful for the reprieve. The barbs delivered during the preceding days have been uncomfortably astute, save for those alluding to Will’s anxiety that Hannibal no longer finds him…interesting.

The air outside the villa is thick with heat and swelling banks of clouds, the air conditioning whirs at a high pitch inside their bedroom, and Hannibal can smell the impending storm. He knows that the movement of the weather is not of his own making, but he appreciates the synchronicity. He has been looking forward to this since the skin on Will’s back began to close over and the hues of bruising subsided into pinks and whites.

Will, still damp from the pool water, looks less expectant than Hannibal had hoped for.

“Tell me what you expect to happen, Will.”

Will’s tongue flicks his lower lip, and it’s a gesture of nerves, not seduction. The shorts he’s wearing are inadequate against the chill of the air conditioning, and his skin is raising in prickles. Hannibal wills the nervishness and insecurities of the past week to manifest into a form of fear more interesting than mere doubt.

“I’m expecting…”

Will hesitates. His eyes are skipping across the items laid out on the bedcovers next to him, not landing near Hannibal.

“I’m expecting that whatever transpires next will be entirely your experience. That this is something you have speculated, contemplated, and will execute in a way which is entirely to your liking.”

Hannibal does not like this answer.

The words bear the imprint of Will’s strategic, hopeful requests for Hannibal to assert control in all physical areas, and this alone would be acceptable. The words, however, are diminished by the guarded way in which they are spoken, and the heavily implied dejection.

Hannibal sits himself on the bed, a chink of metal punctuating the movement.

“I’m not sure,” Will says, and now he’s looking at Hannibal, eyes steel, “that I hold any relevance to your wishes right now.”

The chill of the room threads its way through Hannibal’s shirt.

“That’s an unfair –”

“Fairness isn’t our domain, Hannibal.”

Hannibal does not enjoy hearing his name spoken as though it were a curse.

Will stands to adjust the temperature of the room, his arms placed protectively round him as he sits back. The rigidity of his posture is not the aroused tension Hannibal had anticipated, and he does not wish this setting to be used for a fight; the tools at hand were meant for a more enjoyable purpose.

“You’re restless,” Will continues. “You’re hankering after the thrill of a hunt. Of being hunted.”

Hannibal has no defence against this. He does not confess his disappointment that his excursions into the city have been without cause for incident, nor does he voice his upset that Will does not appear to share in it.

“Idleness is a poor method to improve one’s situation,” he offers instead.

“You want me only in the ways you saw me at the docks,” Will says, and he’s looking away again. “On the bluff. When I’m realising your imagined… potentials. Not mine.”

“They’re not imagined, Will. You know this.”

“You don’t want a _partner_ ,” Will tells him, distaste for the word. “You want a receptacle for your impulses, or you want a beast of becoming. You can’t sustain yourself on all the parts in between. Without them, you have no desire but to destroy. It’s what you do.”

Sitting no longer feels like an adequate position to bear the weight of their conversation, yet Hannibal can’t bring himself to move. He feels each neuron firing in refute of Will’s statements, and yet none of them are combining to form the words which would articulate it. Will knows himself to be that beast, and Will now knows himself as the willing subject of his exploration.

He does want Will, in those small and quiet ways where they tend to the parts of each other which don’t require blood. And he has always wanted the parts in between. But, he knows that there is a grim truth in what Will is telling him.

That without violence, the two of them are simply ordinary. And whilst Will may have found comfort in this in the past, Hannibal cannot.

A weight lifts from the bed, and by the time Hannibal has raised his eyes, Will is pulling clothes from the hangers in the wardrobe.

“You need brutality,” Will says, chin to chest as he fiddles the buttons of his shirt closed. “I thought if I offered it to you, it could be enough.”

“Then why do you believe it isn’t?”

Hannibal means it to sound reasonable, but his voice crackles.

Will keeps his back turned as he swaps shorts for trousers, pulling socks from the shelf.

“You _know_ why.”

This – this is what Hannibal loathes. Will’s endless assertions that Hannibal is a step further ahead of Will’s thoughts than he is. He still finds himself rooted to the bed, frustration transitioning to the more familiar feel of fury. The evidence that it _is_ enough, that Hannibal wants this, it’s evident in the room in this moment; the spoils of every wish he’s had these last days to see Will sated, all made manifest in the tools laid out on the bed and those still concealed in the suitcase.

Hannibal wants to say this, somehow. To express to Will, now toeing his feet into shoes, that his thoughts are so intricately twisted with Will’s that he isn’t sure he would remember the mechanics of breathing were Will not there to remind him of its import. That despite the annoyances, the irritations, the discreet disappointments and indiscreet manipulations, that Will is now a presence living at the core of him. Instead, what comes out is:

“You’re being remarkably obtuse, Will.”

The sky flashes beyond the window.

“Fuck you.”

The low rumble of thunder that follows is too distant to match Hannibal’s tumult of reactions, and he feels mildly betrayed by it.

“Will.”

Will turns, at last, and his mouth is a line; a skewer of emotion in an impassive face.

“ _Han_ nibal.”

Hannibal’s voice is too quiet, too needy. “Now may be a poor time to venture out, even if you do not wish to share in my company.” He gestures towards the flickering sky.

Will’s laugh is a sharp thing.

“That’s a poor attempt at co-dependency. Even for you.”

Will’s hand is on the door as Hannibal leaps from the bed. He has means of control beyond words, and as all else has left him, this is not a chance he wishes to take. He’s holding Will’s right arm, expecting the twist of limbs that follows, and then his hand is at Will’s throat and his body has him pinned against the wood of the door.

“I’d take the storm over this right now,” Will says, the constriction of Hannibal’s hand tainting his words with a rasp.

“Everything here is for _you_ ,” Hannibal says, no generosity in his voice. “This is your construct. You asked for my cruelty?”

Will raises his knee, hard, fast, into Hannibal’s groin.

Then, he smacks a palm into Hannibal’s solar plexus.

Before Hannibal can find breath, Will is reaching again for the door handle.

“Cruelty and dishonesty are different beasts,” Will tells him simply. He’s almost over the threshold when he tells Hannibal:

“At least what’s outside is just plain destructive.”

If Hannibal was being fair, he would let Will go. The sky flickers again, more vibrant, and the patter of rain grows dense. Will’s footsteps track across the corridor, down the stairs, dimming with increased distance.

Will himself admitted that neither of them are versed in fairness, and so Hannibal follows Will’s path, impressed at how much Will’s deftly delivered assaults have hindered him. Will is, perhaps, far more attuned to the violence he faults Hannibal for being drawn to, and therein lies the truth of them. Both struggling to accept the facets of their personalities they view as undesirable, and blaming the other for it. Will with his visceral fury, and Hannibal with…Will. The consolidation of these thoughts reassures Hannibal that his actions in this moment are justified; that Will is simply in some abject state of self-denial. So, when the front door clicks, Hannibal feels no guilt in the way he creeps behind Will, loops his arm across his neck and pulls until Will’s neck is caught firm in the crook of his elbow and his heels are dragging on the ground.

He wants Will here on his terms, but he’s prepared to manoeuvre him into a position whereby he may at least consider those terms more fully.

“Tell me you intend to leave,” Hannibal says, face warm from where Will’s knuckles have twisted to meet it in a punch too twisted to cause damage.

Will stills, then.

“I needed air,” Will strains against Hannibal’s elbow.

It’s all the pause Hannibal needs.

He’s dragging Will backwards up the stairs, his other arm pinioning Will at the shoulders.

“I see,” Hannibal says, exertion in his voice. Seven steps up, he remarks, “If I were to let go, or if your attempts to wriggle free succeed, I imagine you would fall.”

Will says nothing, his feet pushing in tandem with Hannibal’s, not against.

“Good,” offers Hannibal as they reach the top. He moves away from the stairs’ edge before he lets go, not yet trusting Will not to shunt him down at the fastest opportunity. He does not wish to experience another fall, no matter how short the distance.

Hannibal opens the bedroom door and gestures for Will to enter as though he were a guest, and not the unruly charge he’d yanked from escape.

Will’s cheeks are red as he sits back on the bed, more heavily than before. There’s defeat in his posture, but it’s eclipsed by a bloom of rage, quietly radiating. He looks, in poise, like an unruly child, dragged before the headmaster. Sullen, and resigned.

Rain drills at the windows now, and thunder growls nearer.

“I believe staying indoors is more of a necessity than a sign of acquiescence.”

Will nods, staring at the window and the swirls of water running from it.

Hannibal means to be reassuring. He sits next to Will, sweeping the metal ornaments out of view in a dexterous movement and resting a hand on Will’s shoulder.

“I suspect we are living two lives with each other. And that this may be the source of your distress.”

“The way we are, and the way we believe each other to be?” Will asks. His stance is softening, though not enough to seem tamed.

“Then three lives, perhaps.”

“Explain, please.”

Hannibal is thankful for the prompt. Fighting Will with force is a pleasure, for both of them. When their words are the sparring tools, however, it becomes frustrating. He’s on the cusp of losing Will and he needs every friendly advantage he can take.

“We are navigating the versions of each other that led us here, still. From the profound impacts of our lives upon the other, to the mundanities of cohabitation.”

“The profound being where I only earn your acceptance with a gallon of a stranger’s blood on my hands?”

“The profound being where I watch you grapple with your instincts until they begin to match your actions,” Hannibal corrects, irritation creeping in.

“Or where,” Will continues, unphased, “you wrangle with the detail that you’re experiencing love, and it terrifies you so much that you try and kill it, metaphorically and literally. I assume there’s a point to the gun?”

Hannibal drops his arm as the presence of one word renders all others near impotent.

It’s a word they use, but never directly.

Not without the brackets of theoretical statements, metaphors, euphemisms.

Never about themselves.

It condenses all they are into a single word, merging the complexities of each other into a single syllable understood by billions.

And usually associated with acts of great foolishness and outright idiocy.

“Either way,” Will says, and his eyes are so cold as he speaks. “All you’re offering me is death.”

There’s a discussion to be had about the meaning of death, Hannibal thinks. Because he does not believe that Will has fully grasped its relationship to life. He does not trust his words to convey his meaning, not when Will is poised at a brink, albeit an emotional one, and ready to drop.

“And yet,” counters Hannibal, slipping from the bed and onto his knees in front of Will, “your challenges to it were somewhat halfhearted.”

“I’m learning to embrace unavoidable truths.”

“By failing to see them.”

Will closes his eyes as Hannibal reached for the gun. Opens them when he hears the sound of a cartridge being fed into it. Widens them as the barrel is angled at his chest.

“This is what you believe I intend, is it not?”

Will watches as the barrel moves closer, until it’s pressing through his shirt.

“I guess I had this coming from the times I pointed one of these at you.”

He’s smiling; a twist of his mouth and a shine to his teeth as the sky lights up behind them.

Will’s heartbeat reverberates through the weapon. It’s quickening.

Not lacking in intimacy after all.

Hannibal’s free hand rests on Will’s leg. Will lays his own over it.

“You’re not trying to stop me,” Hannibal says, the gun nuzzling against skin as the barrel slips between buttons.

“You didn’t,” Will says.

The room lights up violet, and nothing more is said before the aftermath of the lightning rolls through the sky.

“I would prefer you to favour life, to this.”

“I’m trying to.”

Will stares at him, and there’s confusion and something too close to loathing to make Hannibal feel comfortable.

What Hannibal feels in this moment is not yet arousal, and he supposes that the residual soreness in his groin from Will’s knee is largely to blame. Will’s pulse is thudding and his skin presses against the barrel.

“By courting your death?” Hannibal asks.

“You’ve been courting that since we met,” Will answers, remaining infuriatingly still and unreadable beyond the thunk of his heartbeat. “Why would you choose a gun, Hannibal?”

Hannibal speaks before he can choose more careful words.

“To see you as you were on the docks.”

Will frowns, then his eyebrows lift in realisation.

“There was something…” Hannibal falters, feels Will’s hand wrapping across his, at the base of the weapon.

“…Evocative, about your interaction with the weapon.”

“Oh.”

There’s a new flush to Will’s skin, and a flinch in his muscles as Hannibal trails the weapon upwards, past the open collar of the shirt and to the bare skin of his neck, Will’s grasp accompanying his own as an endorsement.

“Yet you seem more captivated by the idea of me killing you.”

Will shifts his head; a gesture that oscillates between a shake and a nod.

“I admit I preferred it when there was some reciprocity to the act,” Hannibal says, threading a hand through Will’s hair as Will’s arms drop loose to his side, in a gesture that Hannibal has come to recognise in Will as a specific sort of submission. “But as you wish me to be a tool in your pity and self annihilation, then so be it.”

Hannibal is smiling to himself, and Will can’t see it; his eyes closed as though holding his disorientation inside. The evening, Hannibal thinks, could yet be salvaged.

“Humour me?” Hannibal asks, the weapon now nudging at Will’s closed mouth.

Will opens his mouth to answer, and Hannibal slides the barrel past his teeth.

Will backs from it, pushing it out of the way.

“No.”

The room flashes violet again.

“It’s too much like vertigo,” Will says, taking the gun from Hannibal’s hand in a way that feels not unlike castration. “You’re cold, you’re vicious, you’re indifferent, and then you expect me to open up and accept whatever you deem…appropriate. When you decide.”

This is possibly a fair assessment.

“Consistency has rarely been assigned as one of my virtues, Will. Nor yours.”

Will burrows his face in his hands, missing Hannibal’s flourish as he pulls a locket from a chain concealed beneath his shirt.

“I know,” Will says to his hands. “I just…”

He looks up, as Hannibal opens the locket; it’s an ornate, jaded looking piece of jewellery, and Will is surprised to see it.

“Never doubt that I want you close to me,” Hannibal says, showing Will the contents of the ornamental piece. “In whatever way I can. Please do not mistake my actions for disinterest. See?”

Will frowns at the ivory sheen contained inside, then his mouth sits open in disbelief as Hannibal rests the enamel object in his hand.

 

“You’ve been…wearing my tooth.”

 

“I believe it would have been unwise to consume it, even though I was tempted.”

Will pulls Hannibal closer to him, then. Enough that their arms become a thread, the tooth curled inside Hannibal’s fist.

“I suppose,” Will says, with some unease, “that I should stop trying to gauge our interactions on any kind of scale approaching normality.”

There’s a smile to his words, the first sincere one that Hannibal has seen or heard from him in days, and he wants to drink it dry.

The sky flickers, then booms, and then there are lips on Hannibal’s; tentative, still, but promising something like forgiveness. Or perhaps mere understanding. Hannibal believes the principles to be intricately linked, and then he pushes out the thoughts of concepts and ideals and submerges himself in the taste of Will that he has denied himself for so long.

They pull back, and the flurry of impulsiveness dissipates under Will’s concerned expression.

Hannibal doesn’t want the concern to be given voice, doesn’t trust that Will won’t dismantle the fragile truce with the workings of his mind. And so, he kisses him in return, using teeth and pushing himself between Will’s legs until Will folds backwards onto the bed.

“Do you trust that I don’t intend to kill you?” he asks, mouth creeping to Will’s jaw and his hands hurriedly securing the molar back inside the locket.

“Never.”

Will shunts further up the bed, allowing Hannibal room to rest his knees inside the splay of Will’s legs.

Their skin grows sweat as Hannibal works to remove Will’s clothes, and Will works Hannibal’s from him in turn. Words remain unsaid as they readjust to the feelings of flesh and muscle moving close. Hannibal waits until his teeth have bitten Will into a near soporific state until he reaches again for the gun.

He is still very much in control.

His groin is telling him otherwise, but this is a challenge he is now becoming acclimatised to.

Will eyes the weapon with less wariness than before, the lids of his eyes flickering in the light of the storm, yet he stiffens. The barrel knocks against his teeth, and there’s an expression that Hannibal is more used to seeing on the dogs Will kept than on any human, before Will opens his mouth and accepts it.

“Speak to me, Will.”

The barrel slides down the flat of Will’s tongue, and Hannibal reaches for the bottle of lubricant with his free hand as Will utters an incomprehensible sound.

“Uccch.”

“I believe you could try a little harder.”

Hannibal drapes the liquid across his hand and cups it beneath Will’s balls, slipping and pressing against the skin until his fingers languish against their target.

Will’s head back against the pillows, he reaches for the gun as it nudges the back of his throat, all manner of guttural sounds forming a symphony which Hannibal treasures as only his.

“No, Will.”

Will’s grip gains purchase and Hannibal has to use both hands to retrieve it, smearing lube over the base of it in the process.

This is somewhat less cooperative than he would like.

The solution to this is rattling to his side, and Hannibal chastises himself for not utilising it sooner; he had been enjoying Will’s unfettered hands on him too much to want to constrain their movements. But, he is nothing if not adaptable.

Will coughs, chest contracting with the force of it, too distracted by the automated actions of his own body to protest Hannibal securing his wrists to the headboard. He’s careful, still, not to pull Will’s arms at too severe an angle; the scar in his shoulder still covering damages that have yet to heal. The fight that Will offers by the second wrist is more a performance than a defence, and this helps to absolve Hannibal of any guilt at the way Will grimaces as the cuffs loop tight inside the bite of the padlocks.

“Tell me why you think I’m killing you,” he says, gun back in his hand and then burrowed inside the wet of Will’s mouth before Hannibal can consider that the threat of his words sounded more direct than intended.

Will gags.

Hannibal presses the gun a little further in.

“Talk for me.”

There’s little more than an _aaauuch_ and clank of metal against the headboard, and already Hannibal’s insides are folding over themselves to keep up with what he’s feeling. He loves, in all the brutal and fierce ways that he knows how to, the way Will is when he’s embodying the power that terrifies him. When he’s biting the skin from a stranger, or tearing flesh with his hands. And yet, here, now, Hannibal is watching that same ferociousness turned inwards. The fight against himself; to bear the humiliation, and to weather each facet of Hannibal’s cruelty, and to strain every fibre inside him against what he so desperately, achingly thrives off. It’s a sight unparalleled.

The sound of retching pulls Hannibal from his reverie, and he pulls the gun from Will’s mouth with some reluctance to gift him reprieve.

“I fu- _uoghhhhh_.”

Only a brief respite.

He’s working his other hand against Will with force, now; fingers slipping as he pools more lubricant around the creases and crevices, moving past the first twitches of resistance until his index finger can slide freely in.

“Speak, Will.”

The noises increase in pitch as he slides a second finger in, stilling to savour the protraction of vowels echoing through the gun’s chamber. Will arches to the sensation, and Hannibal has never felt such affinity to the deities than like this, spread across Will and holding him full as his body writhes to his commands. Will, he knows, is taking no small delight in his own suffering. Though the position of his body affords him no clear view of Will’s arousal, the heat and the heartbeat and the shine of Will’s eyes and the tremble in him is indicator enough.

As Will’s eyes begin leaking and his noises more sporadic, Hannibal slides the weapon from behind his teeth, trailing saliva as he draws it towards Will’s navel.

Coughing fills the room again, and is drowned out by a boom of thunder which rattles the sky,

“Good,” Hannibal tells him, ignoring the request for water. He has none to hand and he is not prepared to interrupt any moment of this.

He’s shuffling down the bed, shifting to tilt Will at the hips, to arch his legs onto his shoulders to ease the movement of his third and fourth fingers inside.

Will bites back a _fuck_ as Hannibal withdraws, pulling at his wrists for some traction in the rest of him and not succeeding. And then the weapon is back in Hannibal’s hand, and it’s slick, now, and Will’s eyes are like punctures as the metal of it skims his cock.

“Tell me why I won’t kill you, Will.”

Will is rendered mute by the slide of the barrel past the small gape of his entrance. Then, he’s gasping, and the barrel of it begins to disappear inside, shifting and tilting and pushing and now, Will looks scared.

“Tell me,” Hannibal says, and he’s barely holding onto himself but this, Will biting at his lip to keep himself from shouting, this is not an act he can risk losing himself in.

“Because,” Will says, voice rough as splintered glass, “you’ve got the – _ah_ –”

The curve of metal in front of the trigger presses against Will’s skin.

“Safety on,” Will manages.

Hannibal pulls at the catch, a clear enough gesture that Will can see exactly what he’s doing, if not feel it.

“And now?” Hannibal asks, the leak of his own cock now beginning to match Will’s in urgency.

He pulls the weapon back, feels a clutch trying to drag it back, and uses all of his practiced willpower not to imagine that same clutch against _him_.

The push and the drag forms an accelerando, accentuated by the quickening of Will’s breaths and the way his skin burns hot at Hannibal’s fingertips. He can’t last, like this, and already the syllables of Hannibal’s name are dropping into the air in the form of pleas, to touch, now, _please_.

Hannibal toys his fingers near the trigger, tries to imagine the temptation of pulling, tries to feel the way he imagined Will had, when he first used the same motion.

He pulls his fingers into a retreat. It would be too easy, he knows, to allow impulsive curiosity to ruin them both. He wraps his hand fully around the base instead, considers reapplying the safety but finds it a move too far. He’s jamming it inside Will now, using all resistance known to him not to touch himself as Will curls and folds with what movements he can. Will’s shaking is frantic, and he’s shouting curses, interchanging Hannibal’s name with all manner of celestial entities.

He’s lit up again; the room a glaring white for an instant.

Hannibal’s hands are sliding, over the weapon and over Will’s skin and he just needs to focus, and –

The crack shakes the walls of the room, and for less than a second, Hannibal panics. He hears his name dissolve into a guttural roar, swallowed by the aftermath of the thunderclap, and his hands are on himself as he reassures himself that Will is very much alive, twitching around the metal, stomach now laced with his own ejaculate.

He’s given Will what he needed. And without touch, in a sense.

Pride blooms within Hannibal, only it’s a victorious, dirty sort of elation. It rumbles through him, teases itself out by his fingertips, and then with his fist, and it’s seconds if that long before he’s spilled himself out into the waiting damp of Will’s skin.

He pulls the gun away, wiping it discreetly as the lactic shake of his limbs matches Will’s in a hum.

They’re both grasping for air, still.

Stunned, sated and exhausted from so few seconds, and Will is _everything_ to Hannibal in this moment, dishevelled and damp and magnificent, and this moment is one he will stretch into a forever, if he can.

He rests his head against Will’s chest, inhaling the quietened panic and perspiration, loosely aware that Will does not yet have any means of movement.

The air beyond the room continues to roar and strobe, while the space within it feels calm, at last. Just breathing. Hannibal pushes back his one lingering worry; that the figurative trigger for Will’s orgasm had been a belief that a more literal trigger had been pulled.

It’s not that Will wishes himself dead, Hannibal considers. Or that he places little enough value on his life that he’d forsake it for this. It’s the violence, and the thrill of it. The spark that serves to ignite those places inside him he still fears, despite their radiance.

“What did you mean by the second life we’re living?” Will asks in a rasp. Hannibal moves to reach for the glass of water by the bedside, tilting it to Will’s lips before he considers that he could release Will’s arms and let him hydrate himself.

“Third life, even,” Will says when Hannibal moves the glass and drinks from it.

Sometimes, Hannibal wishes that Will could allow his mind more quiet.

“This.”

Will nods in contemplation as Hannibal locates the keys to the padlocks, unhooking each wrist in turn and rubbing the skin until he feels warmth inside his grasp.

“The life where we transpose who we are into our most intimate actions,” Hannibal says, handing Will a cloth and hoping that his wrists are not too sore to wipe his stomach dry. “And where I find myself wanting to please you, above all else.”

Will drops the now soiled cloth onto the nightstand. Smiles, loose and easy this time.

“How truly altruistic you must be, focusing solely on my pleasure and giving no thought to your own,” Will says, in an uncanny imitation of Hannibal’s patois. His expression turns serious again before Hannibal can feign indignation at the mockery. “Do you think we can keep these multiple lives going?”

“These are not spinning plates, Will. Our lives are ours to intertwine and unravel as we wish.”

Will nods again, shifts so that he’s lying on his side facing Hannibal.

“Don’t…don’t go cold on me like that again,” he says with an uncharacteristic lack of finesse, hand resting tentatively on Hannibal’s arm. Still hesitant, even after all the evening has brought them through.

“I can no more promise my future actions than you can promise who you will be each new day” Hannibal answers, slinking down the bed until he’s horizontal, and can reach his arms around Will to pull him closer.

“You’re an asshole.”

“I know.”

Hannibal rests his nose in Will’s hair, welcomes the coil of limbs between his and tries to convey that he really, truly, intends to keep Will as his, always.

“I couldn’t let you leave me,” he says. “Not in life, nor in death.”

Will makes a sound at that, something gentle that gets lost in the spaces between their skin.

“Go to sleep, Will.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...That was fluffy though, right?


	8. Waking

Morning sifts through the air vents, carrying the scent of petrichor. It filters through the sweat-drenched tendrils of Will’s hair, where Hannibal’s nose rests. There’s a top note somewhere in the myriad of aromas; a tang, thin and sharp and sweet. Blood, of course. Will’s. A delicate, thin hint of something damaged in ways he hadn’t seen the previous night, not through the biting or the struggling. A curiosity.

Skin sticks to skin, and Hannibal rouses himself without movement, his chest meeting the indents of Will’s back, legs tucked into legs, and his fingers stretching across the slow rise and drop of Will’s stomach. It’s a precious kind of peace. Will shifts; a halt in breathing, a half cough, and then his lungs resume their languorous, rumbling breaths. The shuffle of skin puts Hannibal altogether closer than mere comfort, though the concept of anything more vigorous than this gentle stasis has yet to manifest.

His Will.

He’s certain that this incarnation of himself that’s woken, so serenely satisfied at his lot, would be something of a stranger to the man who first had this twitchy, awkward man thrust in front of him by the stalwarts of the FBI. He thinks, as Will coughs himself awake, that he doesn’t mind the change.

Will doesn’t speak. He reaches for Hannibal’s hand and presses it closer to his stomach, and shifts back into where Hannibal is starting to press into him. It’s tempting, in the way that a bared neck tempts the knife. Hannibal counts out three rises and three falls of the breath in Will’s belly before he can suppress the urge to press more fully. He waits another two as Will wriggles against him. He doesn’t seem to make willpower an easy feat for him to master, like this.

“I’ll make us breakfast,” he tells Will.

“No.”  
Will’s hand wraps around his, and guides it to the tufts of hair some inches beneath his scar. His grip is disarmingly strong for someone so recently woken, and this blows another hole into Hannibal’s resolve.

Will’s voice is still thick, still caught in the pillow that swallows half of his face. “You’ll put your hands on me.”  
Hannibal stiffens at the words. He also finds himself without a reply, with his hand being guided to the swollen texture of Will’s cock. There are justifications for him to resist, to withhold, but they seem fragmented when placed against the solid warmth growing beneath his fingertips.

He skims his fingernails across the smooth head, bedding himself into the cleft of Will’s cheeks. He’s past the point of resisting, now. But he could yet decide whether to make Will regret the assertiveness of his hunger. His hands feel too dry, with too much awkwardness in the delicate friction he’s building with his hand, Will’s fingers still guiding him. He’s distracted, momentarily, by the way the tip of his own cock has found something damp and this, he knows, isn’t right; the albeit cursory wash last night should have left something of a clean slate this morning. Will is oblivious, curling his spine as Hannibal drags the thinnest trail of precum down his shaft. Hannibal presses again, and there’s no relaxation of flesh to welcome him, yet. Will hisses into the pillow.

“Will?”

Will doesn’t verbalise anything, only greets the new discomfort as an additional test of endurance, freeing his left arm to speed Hannibal’s hand around his cock, his breathing now eked out through ground teeth. It’s disconcerting, to have Will suffering without a visible cause, and though it seems to have only sped the urgency with which Hannibal seeks relief, it necessitates a pause from the curious tacky friction growing from Will’s movements.

Will creeps his left arm beneath him at the interruption, his fingers reaching for purchase and scratching instead at the skin of Hannibal’s thighs and this is too much of a distraction; this clumsy, purposeful insistence.

“Will.”

Hannibal tries to manoeuvre himself backwards, his own left arm still trapped between them with no range of movement to it. Will matches the movement, keeping him wrapped around the heating skin and feeling more confined than is comfortable.

Hannibal’s pressing again, needing the contact more than feeling concern for its texture, and Will is shaking in his hold. The gasp that spits from Will’s throat is indiscernible between one borne of pain or desperation and _god_ , Hannibal needs to exorcise this _wanting_ from his system. It’s a swift movement that rolls Will onto his stomach, the grip of both of their hands remaining unbroken, with the added trappings of the sheets beneath them layering groans into Will’s breathing. He lets Will shift his hips up, sliding his weight onto his thighs and knees as he shrugs the duvet off them both. Hannibal prefers this, he thinks; Will’s scuff-marked spine visible beneath him, face still sideways into the pillow and his own left hand now free to attend to himself.

“ _Hann_ ibal.”

Will shudders as he speaks the name, the rush of release spurting through Hannibal’s fingers. Indignation at having been beaten to the finish only heightens Hannibal’s urgency, his rutting now feeling utterly ineffectual. He sits back on his heels, his damp hand meeting his dry one to pull himself as Will wilts beneath him. He replays the echo of Will drawling his name, hears it like a song or a siren. Will’s skin beneath him is a bloom, and he finds himself reaching to part Will’s buttocks not out of intention, but to show himself how fully this man, this _creature_ , is his. _All_ of him. He feels himself contracting, swelling. He can see blood; a gentle trail of it on Will, and it belongs there, as much as he belongs here. It’s all _his_. The expulsion comes in a wave, and then a shudder, stringing down Will’s back and ending where the blood trail begins.

His muscles liquefy as he drops himself next to Will, careful to avoid the mess, a hand reaching to rest in his hair.

The fragments of earlier concern regroup in the quiet moments between them. Realisation fits into the assembly of thoughts as the cause of that sweet scent forms an image of the previous night; the gun, of course. The foresight; such a small interruption to the smooth circle of the barrel, but enough to have torn, when moving with speed and the violence that their intimacies invoke.

The knowledge causes a quiet satisfaction in Hannibal. Understanding is always a gift, however small. Then, it causes a second wave of concern; this time, for himself and for the thing he will have to once again deny himself; damage requires recovery. He finds himself forgetting this, at times when it is convenient for him to do so, and the resurgence of this knowledge is rarely welcome.

Will shifts onto his elbows, moving to roll over. Hannibal sees the threads of liquid drying on his back and does not wish it disturbed, so places the flat of his hand between Will’s shoulderblades and pushes back down.

“Stay as you are,” he offers as elaboration. Will doesn’t question this, seeming content to rest his head back into the pillow as Hannibal resumes the gentle rolling of fingers through his hair.

“It seems you’ve sustained some injury from last night, Will.”

There’s a full breath of pause before Will answers.

“You make it sound as though I did it to myself.” It sounds more incisive than questioning, and Hannibal enjoys the bite of the words.

“Arguably, you did.”

Will moves to sit up again, to answer back without the veil of a pillow half smothering his words. Hannibal pushes him back down with more strength, this time.

“ _We_ did,” Will corrects. “We can’t claim separateness of intention, or of action.”

Hannibal hears the truth in Will’s words, and feels something like power being sapped from him as the understanding of the statement swells in its place. He is not the agent of his own direction, not truly. This is more than mere adaptation; it’s a melding.

“Then my actions are your actions,” he tells Will. If Will is honest, then he must accept this, too.

“Yes.”

“Then you are no longer appalled?” Hannibal presses, in the way that one worries at a wound, waiting to see if it will deepen or cease bleeding.

“We can be appalled at ourselves. It’s what shapes and steers our future actions.”

Hannibal accepts this, feeling somewhat shaken from his moorings. He tries to conjure intentions too violent for Will to adapt to, to prove that his motivations are separate. His mind is quick to supply the cruelty that would surely set himself as perpetrator and Will as recipient, but his mind is equally fast in reminding him that this is a manipulation in itself, and that Will has burrowed so far into his being that he would expect nothing less. The distance he’d imposed in the days preceding last night seem utterly redundant; Will’s former neediness now replaced by something so powerfully secure in its own knowledge of the both of them.

The mess on Will’s back looks less like a stamp of ownership in this newly lucid light, and Hannibal finds his enjoyment of it dulled.

“You should shower,” he tells Will, knowing that by volunteering instruction, he is at least reassembling the constructs of authority. He tugs Will’s hair, a little, to emphasise.

Will moves easily from the bed, waiting until he’s standing by the door with an arm already scratching behind him until he answers.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he says. And it’s in that moment, when Will’s face flashes with a smile so sharp that it cuts lines across his face, that Hannibal realises the simple play of power that’s just taken place; that Will simply wanted the freedom to return his skin to comfort, and that it would only be possible if he removed Hannibal’s need to see his discomfort continue.

A short fury flares inside Hannibal, though he finds it mostly directed at himself for being so readily taken in by every surge and fall of Will’s words. And then that spark flickers something else in him, something more familiar; there’s pride in Will, and there’s the need to reclaim his own. They may be merged, but he is not yet ready to be subsumed.

He listens to the sound of water running through the bathroom door, and begins musing on the ways in which he can regain his ever-dwindling sense of control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sincerest apologies for this update taking so very long; the multiple curses of 2016 sort of got in the way. But! More things are planned for this, including some possibly non-sordid events - and though I can't promise when this will be, it will be. Thank you, as always, for the reading of this and the encouragement.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates may be a little sporadic as my computer is broken and this is being done covertly on the work PC, but there should be something new at least once a week (and soon the filth can commence). 
> 
> Feedback is sustenance! No, really. I'm not above begging. 
> 
> Dregs of my dignity (and other fictional concepts) can be found here: muffichka.tumblr.com


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